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9 















The Works of Mrs. Gaskell 


ltnut6for^ £Mtion 


EIGHT VOLUMES 


1. Mary Barton 5. My Lady Ludlow 

2. Cranford 6. Sylvia’s Lovers 

3. Ruth 7. Cousin Phillis 

4. North and South 8. Wives and Daughters 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
New York 


London 


icnurstocd Eettion 


THE WORKS 

OF 

MRS. GASKELL 

IN EIGHT VOLUMES 

With a General Biographical Introduction, and 
a Critical Introduction to Each Volume. 


BY 

DR. A. W. WARD 

Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 

WHO HAS RECEIVED THE KIND ASSISTANCE OF THE 


MISSES GASKELL 


**Mr8. Qaskeil has done what neither I nor other female 
writers in France can accomplish — she has written novels 
which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and 
yet which every girl will be the better for reading.” 


aeORQE SAND. 






K. 


(^SO'4-S) 


7^ru>ey 


^m^ty^IaMker ^4i .^c 


Iknutsforb' E&ttion 


COUSIN PHILLIS 



S3 ,• ‘ 


MR^GA^SKELL 


To which are added 

Lois the Witch — The Crooked Branch —Curious if True — 
Right at Last — The Grey Woman — Six Weeks at Heppenheim 
— A Dark Night’s Work — The Shah’s English Gardener — 
French Life — Crowley Castle— Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

DR. A. W. WARD 

Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 


NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, k CO. 

1906 


•Vi' 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

)AN 88 190r 


Copyrlitit Entiy 



f(,i oyt. 

COPY B. 


Copyright, igo6 

BY 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
(For Introduction) 


CONTENTS 


PREFATORY NOTE .... 

• 

o 

• 

PAGE 

. xi 

INTRODUCTION 

• 

• 

• 

. xiii 

COUSIN PHILLIS .... 

• 

• 

• 

. 1 

LOIS THE WITCH •. . . . 

• 

• 

• 

. 110 

THE CROOKED BRANCH . 

• 

• 

• 

. 209 

CURIOUS IF TRUE 

• 

• 

• 

. 259 

RIGHT AT LAST 

• 

• 

• 

. 278 

THE GREY WOMAN .... 

• 

• 

• 

. 300 

SIX WEEKS AT HEPPENHEIM 

• 

• 

• 

. 362 

A DARK NIGHT’S WORK . 

• 

• 

• 

. 404 

THE SHAH’S ENGLISH GARDENER 

• 

• 

• 

. 691 

FRENCH LIFE 

• 

t 

• 

. 604 

CROWLEY CASTLE .... 

• 

• 

• 

. 681 

TWO FRAGMENTS OF GHOST STORIES 

• 

. 

. 

. 721 


vii 


eTVinTVlOO 


aTOK '/aoTAaaa*! 


KomadoMTHi 


Ktauoo 




norrw SHT area 


. HOVTAHa aaH(X)aci^ aOT 
. / auaT •SI a'jorauo 

» . . TaAJ TA TiiDia 

. KAMow '/aao aiiT 

i£iaHKaTia>i ta e)w;?v/ xra 
• * 

• . mow a^THOlK XiMa A 


aaPiMaHAy s^hak^ sht 


' - , *". . ,. auu Ha>ia>r£ 

.‘ ; . ""aJTaAO YCi.IWQHO 

, anmoTa tsoho ao aTOaiACAOT owt 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Portrait op Mrs. Gaskell (1864-5) . . . Frontispiece 

From a drawing hy Samuel Laurence 

Les Bochers (Madame de Sevigne’s ChAteau) To face page 638 
From a watercolour drawing hy M. G. 







;:eV'On‘A>iTHa.T.II 


i 


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'./.Si I. . ,' . ,, 


PREFATORY NOTE 


In the present volume, I have found it impossible to 
observe strictly the chronological sequence which in this 
edition it has been generally sought to maintain among 
Mrs. Gaskell’s principal stories and her minor pieces 
respectively. Nearly the whole of this volume was in 
print, when an unexpected opportunity occurred of mak- 
ing an interesting addition to its contents. Some little 
time since, the Contributors’ Book of Household WordSy 
now in the possession of Mr. R. C. Lehmann, M.P., was 
by him courteously placed at the disposal of Mr. B. W. 
Matz, of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Editor of The Dicken- 
sian, through whose friendly offices Mr. W. J. Williams, 
representing the Publishers of this edition, first heard of 
the existence of the book, and had an opportunity of 
examining it. This examination led to the identification 
of a contribution named The Sin of a Father with the 
story of Right at Last, already published by Mrs. Gaskell, 
and to the discovery of a paper by her, entitled The 
Shah's English Gardener, which has accordingly been 
inserted in the present volume. 

It further came to the knowledge of Mr. Williams that 
the Account Books of All the Year Round, of which the 
present whereabouts has not been ascertained, had been 
seen by the late Mr. F. G. Kitton, who had noticed the 
mention in them of several contributions by Mrs. Gaskell. 
Among these entries was that of The Ghost in the Garden 
Room, one of the stories in The Haunted House, the 
1859 Christmas number of the journal, which is identical 
with Mrs. Gaskell’s powerful story of The Crocked 
xi 


Prefatory Note 

Branch; while another entry showed that Mrs. Gaskell 
wrote the first tale in Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, the 1863 
Christmas number. This tale proves to be, so far as the 
first two-thirds of it are concerned, to all intents and 
purposes the same as an incomplete MS. among Mrs. 
Gaskell’s papers, with which I have been enabled to 
compare it, before printing it in the present volume. 

Mr. R. C. Lehmann, Mr. Arthur Waugh, the managing 
director of Messrs. Chapman & Hall, and Mr. Matz, are 
requested to accept an expression of sincere thanks for so 
kindly facilitating our inquiries. This courtesy has been 
in perfect keeping with the mutual goodwill which 
always marked the relations between Mrs. Gaskell and 
the great originator of Household Words and All the 
Year Round. 

A. W. W. 

September, 1906. 


xii 


INTRODUCTION TO ^‘COUSIN 
PHILLIS/’ ETC. 


“Nature and Art — Art and Nature,” wrote Goethe, 
more oracular on this occasion in manner than in matter, 
“should be one and the same thing on the stage. ” And 
surely, if his added explanation be accepted, the axiom 
holds good, not only of the theatre, but of creative 
literature. For when “Art succeeds in transmuting 
itself into Nature,” then “Nature fully asserts herself 
in Art.” 

There cannot be any dispute as to Mrs. Gaskell having 
in Cousin Phillis among all her shorter stories approached 
most nearly to literary perfection ; while the human sym- 
pathies of many a generation of readers to come may be 
trusted to respond unreservedly to the direct appeal 
made to them in this simple tale. Thus Art and Nature 
have here, whether consciously or not matters little, 
joined in achieving that triumph which is so commonly 
marred by some defect, some oversight, some misappre- 
hension, in the one direction or the other. In a diamond 
such as Cousin Phillis, “of purest ray serene,” there is 
no flaw; and I do not know how better to describe what 
seems to me the rare felicitousness of this exquisite 
production. It is at the same time an admirable ex- 
ample of a species of fiction in which Mrs. Gaskell was 
one of the first among English writers to excel ; nor has 
the “short story,” in which, though the canvas is com- 
paratively small in extent, room is left for a delineation 
and working-out of character to which the “ Christmas 
story” of the Dickensian type made no pretence, reached, 

xiii 


Introduction 

quite the same height of success in any other English 
hands. 

But it may be worth while to recall how simple were 
the materials of which Mrs. Gaskell made use in this 
beautiful little work, and out of which she composed one 
of the loveliest prose idylls in our literature. The freedom 
with which she has combined these materials is in itself 
a sign of the happy ease of her workmanship. Thus 
there can be no doubt as to the original locality — north- 
ern, but with no strongly marked northern character- 
istics — of the scene in which the story plays. There is 
no mystery about the Hope Farm, at Heathbridge, 
described so faithfully both in its unchanging indoor 
domesticity and in a series of outdoor pictures that seem 
to bring the seasons themselves home to us — corn-harvest 
following on hay-making, and apple-gathering on corn- 
harvest. The Heathbridge of Cousin Phillis is Sandle- 
bridge in Cheshire, within easy reach of Knutsford, 
for which “Eltham” may be here supposed to do duty; 
and the Hope Farm is, with differences, the house owned 
by Mrs. Gaskell’s grandfather, Mr. Samuel Holland, the 
home of her mother, familiar to herself for many years, 
and, again with differences, described in Cranford as 
Woodley, the residence of Mr. Holbrook, who quoted 
Tennyson under the cedar-tree, as the minister quoted 
Vergil in the light of the sunset. Sandlebridge had come 
into the possession of the Holland family through the 
marriage, in 1718, of John Holland to Mary, daughter 
of Peter Colthurst, whose family had held the estate of 
Sandlebridge for several generations. It is noticeable 
that in Cousin Phillis particular mention is made of the 
“two great gates between pillars, crowned with stone 
balls, for a state entrance to the flagged path leading up 
to the front-door” — the door which, being “handsome 


XIV 


« Cousin Phillis,” etc, 

and all for show,” was by nonconformist wit dubbed 
“the rector. ” Beyond a doubt these were the identical 
balls, from one to the other of which the great Clive, on 
a visit to Sandlebridge in his thoughtless youth, had been 
wont to jump, greatly to the alarm of the Holland 
household. 

On the other hand, it is difficult to resist the impression 
that in the minister-farmer Holman, who was master at 
the Hope Farm, there are some very interesting remin- 
iscences of Mrs. Gaskell’s own father, William Stevenson. 
He was at one time a Unitarian minister; and, after 
quitting the ministry, devoted himself to agricultural 
pursuits, and became an authority on many subjects 
connected with them. As has been said elsewhere in 
this edition, he seems to have been a man of much origin- 
ality; and it was the combination of intellectual power 
and practical good sense with deep religious feeling which 
evidently had strongly impressed itself upon his daugh- 
ter. This combination came home to her inmost nature ; 
nor has there ever been a more striking picture drawn 
than this of a man desirous of putting religion into the 
whole of this life. But the humorous aspect of these 
blended qualities also struck her; not only does he pray 
for the cattle and live creatures at evening “exercise,” 
but, while still on his knees, he orders John to see that 
the sick cow has her warm mash. And, again, the 
minister (though his is not the kind of faith to be sapped 
by doubts) is unable quite to ignore the difference 
between himself and his brethren, even when, at the 
time of his daughter’s dangerous illness, they come to 
console him (not without references to the Book of Job). 
In the grand outlines of his patriarchal personality, 
minister Holman is like a figure from Herfyiann and 
Dorothea; but the pulse of human emotion beats 

XV 


Introduction 


vehemently in him, and his love for his child is strong 
enough to unman him. 

What thoughts of others near and dear to her entered 
into Mrs. Gaskell’s conception of further personages in the 
little drama that ran its course at the Hope Farm, who 
can tell ? Cousin Phillis herself is a creation of indescrib- 
able charm; but, lovely as it is, there comes to it an 
irradiation which seems to make it lovelier than itself, 
while all the time we are but too well aware that this 
vision of love will prove delusive. The birds, we know, 
are the friends of poets, and they have rendered good 
service in poetic literature from the days of Dante and 
Chaucer onwards. But when have they, without leave 
asked or granted, ventured to make melody in a printed 
page, like that in which they alternate with sweet 
Phillis in her hour of happiness? 

“I never saw her so lovely, or so happy. I think she hardly 
knew why she was so happy, all the time. I can see her now, 
standing under the budding branches of the grey trees, over 
which a tinge of green seemed ta be deepening day after day, her 
sun-bonnet fallen back on her neck, her hands full of delicate 
wood-flowers, quite unconscious of my gaze, but intent on sweet 
mockery of some bird in neighbouring bush or tree. She had the 
art of warbling, and replying to the notes of different birds, and 
knew their song, their habits, and ways, more accurately than 
any one else I ever knew. She had often done it at my request, 
the spring before; but this year she really gurgled, and whistled, 
and warbled, just as they did, out of the very fulness and joy 
of her heart. She was more than ever the very apple of her 
father’s eye ; her mother gave her both her own share of love and 
that of the dead child who had died in infancy, 

“Look,” says Shakspere, “where the painter would 
surpass the life!” It may be so; but out of the fulness 
of the heart it cometh; and the last touch, too, in the 
enchanting passage which I have quoted, could not be 
xvi 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

omitted. No human joy, not even that of contemplat- 
ing a creature, a child, of such exquisite loveliness, but 
brings with it some reniembrance, some regret. 

But the charm of this story is a homely charm; all its 
characters, with the single exception of Holdsworth, 
W’hom a fatal chance brings into this scene of peace to 
disturb it, partake of this simplicity — a simplicity of 
manners and of that which lies at the root of manners. 
The intellectual curiosity of Phillis — ^who reads Dante 
like Margaret in North and South — is as unaffected as 
her mother’s complete lack of it; Betty’s affection is as 
unvarnished as that of Sally in Ruth, though in such a 
household as the minister’s she instinctively “knows her 
place,” and administers the naked truth only to so 
defenceless an offender as Cousin Paul. Poor Paul 
himself, the narrator of the story, is as delightfully 
natural as any of the characters in it. His discovery 
of Phillis’s maiden love is told with simple delicacy, 
and his “tactical” blunder in revealing to her Holds- 
worth ’s affection is so perfectly consistent with his 
sympathetic point of view as to be altogether excusable. 

Thus the plot, itself quite simple, unfolds itself with- 
out jarring on us at any stage of its progress; and I do 
not remember any instance of so delicate a treatment of 
so tender a theme, unless it be the exquisite little play, 
Carmosine, by Alfred de Musset, treating the same 
story as that on which George Eliot founded her poem 
How Lisa loved the King. 

And so, even the ending of Paul’s narrative, like the 
whole of its previous course, leaves the harmony of our 
sympathies unbroken. What is the actual end, we do 
not know, though something has been said to suggest a 
fear. The idea of a “last scene long years after,” 
suggested to Mrs. Gaskell, was (fortunately, I think) 

3?vii 


Introduction 


not entertained by her. There might have been a 
melancholy charm in the picture of a beneficent woman- 
hood assuaging the melancholy remembrance of a broken 
youth, and suggesting what Mrs. Gaskell, half-humor- 
ously, half-tenderly, describes as “a sort of moral ‘Tis 
better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved 
at all.’ ” But it is quite enough that we should know 
what Paul tells us of the time when Phillis was slowly, 
slowly recovering. “I sometimes grew desponding, and 
feared that she would never be what she had been 
before; no more she has, in some ways. ” 

Cousin Phillis first appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, 
from November, 1863, to February, 1864; and was 
reprinted with “other Tales” by Messrs. Smith, Elder 
& Co. in November, 1865, three illustrations by 

Du Maurier. A French translation, by F. D. Forgues, 
which first appeared in 1867, went through several 
editions; that published in 1879 with a version of 
A Dark Night's Work was accompanied by a very 
appreciative study on 'Elisabeth Gaskell et ses Ouvrages 
by Mme. Louise Sw. Belloc. 

Lois the Witch, which first appeared in All the Year 
Round from October 8th to 22nd, 1859, and was first 
reprinted in a volume entitled Right at Last, and other 
Tales, published by Messrs. Sampson, Low, and Co. in 
i860, belongs to a date rather earlier than what may be 
described as the latest group of Mrs. Gaskell’s literary 
productions. Among the characteristics of that group 
are a rare finish of style, and an exquisite blending of 
delicate humour with deep pathos, which I think Thirl- 
wall, who was so greatly impressed by Sylvia's Lovers, 
would not have hesitated to qualify as partaking of that 
“irony” which he traced in the serenest of Attic tra- 
gedians, Of this there are but few instances in the story, 
xviii 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

not less painful than powerful, of Lois the Witch, 
The authoress seems to fall back upon that idea of fate 
or destiny, which makes its presence felt in more than 
one of her minor stories, and against the oppressiveness 
of which she, like many great authors before and after 
her — I do not scruple to say, like the great Greek 
tragedians themselves — found it so difficult to contend. 
“Human nature,” truly observes William Arnold, in a 
note on what he terms the prevalence of this motive 
in Mrs. Gaskell’s writings, “rebels against undeserved 
misfortune, and finds it hard to swallow even in art. . . 

The great artist, nevertheless, makes us swallow what is 
so difficult, and shows us an inner, further harmony.” 
This harmony, which is fully evolved in Sylvia's Lovers, 
and tenderly indicated in Cousin Phillis, is not to be 
found in Lois the Witch. The cruelty of poor Lois’s 
doom, unmitigated except by her own charity in the 
hour of death towards a fellow-sufferer, rests upon us 
unrelieved; and, sad as the story is, nothing in it is so 
pitiful as the formal apology of her persecutors and the 
thrice-repeated lament of her broken-hearted lover: 
“All this will not bring my Lois to life again, or give me 
back the hope of my youth.” Yet here, too, Mrs. 
Gaskell cannot forget where all contradictions are recon- 
ciled, and all sorrows healed; for Lois’s true lover is 
most true to her, and to the spirit in which she suffered, 
when he prays for forgiveness for those that brought her 
to her cruel death. 

In itself, the construction of this story is both even 
and skilful, and the authoress acquits herself with 
remarkable success of the task which she had set herself 
of making truth seem probable. In the whole ghastly 
and grotesque chapter of that history of human delu- 
sions whose final volume still seems so far distant — in 


XIX 


Introduction 


the whole of the annals of witchcraft — no passages are 
so melancholy and so humiliating as the latest. 

But the problems which here suggest themselves can- 
not be discussed on the present occasion. More con- 
siderations than one help to explain the appalling fact 
of its having been at the close of the Middle Ages, in the 
very period of the dawn of the New Learning, that one 
of the most awful and prolonged of all the moral epi- 
demics which have ever pervaded Western Europe took 
hold upon us in the shape of a general persecution of 
witches and witchcraft. The prevalence of this epi- 
demic during the sixteenth and a great part of the seven- 
teenth centuries in Protestant countries was partly due 
to the desire of Protestant divines and governments 
not to fall behind their Catholic neighbours in meeting 
what was regarded as a common peril, but still more to 
the control which theology had assumed over the minds 
of men, and the formalism — the belief in the letter of 
the Bible — into which theology seemed to have suc- 
ceeded in compressing the Christian religion. In Eng- 
land, the belief in witchcraft was, with its terrible 
practical consequences so long as it remained an accepted 
tenet, specially prolonged by a sinister combination of 
influences — the perverseness of a sovereign of King 
James I.’s intellectual activity, the desire for authority 
which possessed the Church, and the immovable stolidity 
of the judges of the Realm. Even the Great Revolution, 
which overthrew throne and bishops, failed to break 
down the edifice of superstition of which I am speaking ; 
nor was it (as Buckle has shown in a well-known passage 
of his well-known work) till the next generation — the 
period from the Restoration to the second (or “glorious”) 
Revolution — that the belief in witchcraft gradually 
ceased to possess the majority of educated Englishmen^ 

XX 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

and that persons charged with this offence found (in 
Chief Justice Holt) protection on the Judicial Bench. 
But the law against witchcraft passed by Parliament in 
the year of Queen Elizabeth’s accession (1559) remained 
on our statute-book till 1736; and there seems no doubt 
that isolated cases of execution for a crime, in whose 
reality even Wesley had not ceased to believe, occurred 
in England in the early years of the eighteenth century. 

Meanwhile, many, though not all, of the Puritan 
emigrants, who during the civil troubles of the previous 
century had, in order to preserve intact their civil and 
religious freedom, found their way across the Atlantic 
to New England, had taken with them the deadly super- 
stition of which we are speaking, and which had so long 
infected the life of the old country. In the long winters 
among the mysterious forests, in the perilous vicinity 
of savage races of whose own life little was known beyond 
tales of strange traditions and dark practices, an atmos- 
phere must have been created round many of the im- 
migrants with which their own inherited superstitions 
readily mingled. Mrs. Gaskell has herself well described 
these experiences and their effect in an admirable 
passage of her story, illustrating her quick sensitiveness 
to such historical and social phenomena. The terrible 
experiences of “Philip’s War” in 1675-6, though it had 
ended with the destruction of the power of the Indians 
in southern New England, had intensified the feelings 
of repugnance which these people inspired; and when 
war broke out between France and England in 1690, 
the French took large bodies of Indians into their pay. 
In the year 1692, when the witch-finding and witch- 
killing epidemic came to an outbreak at Salem, there 
were other causes of anxiety and depression — such as 
visitations of the small-pox, and a series of great fires 


XXI 


Introduction 


at Boston — which disposed the public mind in Massa- 
chusetts to give way with special readiness to delusive 
terrors. 

The story of the witchcraft “discoveries” and perse- 
cution at Salem, all of which belong to the year 1692, 
may be read in Bryant and Gay’s Popular History of 
the United States (vol. ii., 1878), and in earlier author- 
ities of which a list is given there. It will be seen from 
a reference to this narrative with what skill Mrs. Gaskell 
has made use of the suggestions supplied by her historical 
material. The Indian element is there; for it was an 
old Indian female slave, called Tituba, whose tricks 
first infected some precocious children at Salem village 
with a morbid desire to dabble in the practices of 
sorcery. In Lois the Witch the motive of the wicked 
Prudence’s action is therefore in no sense far-fetched. 
Other details are worked into the progress of the story, 
without violence being done either to its general proba- 
bility, or to its general agreement with the actual course 
of events. The proceedings against Lois seem more or 
less modelled upon those against Rebecca Nourse, of 
whom the historians say that in the midst of a happy 
married life she was suddenly, because of a business 
quarrel in which her husband had become involved, 
subjected to an accusation from which there was no 
escape. 

“The children" cried out “one day against Rebecca Nourse; 
the usual display of hysterics, fits, possessions, took place, 
terrible to the overwrought feelings of the spectators. A clergy- 
man, named Lawson, delivered a most exciting discourse, which 
put the witchcraft trials upon Scripture grounds and confirmed 
all minds. A blameless life and a sweet demeanour at her trial 
could not save Rebecca. The jury were forced to believe her 
innocent but were sent out till they consented. She went the 
way of all the rest to Witches’ Hill. . . . 

xxii 


« Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

Of the one or two historical personages introduced 
into the tale, the redoubtable Dr. Cotton Mather at 
all events, the author of The Wonders of the Invisible 
World, being an Account of the Trial of several Witches, 
etcT' (1693), could have no right to complain of the 
prominence here given to his personality. When Stephen 
Burroughs, one of the victims of the Salem panic, was 
hanged. Cotton Mather stood by, and, “when the people 
seemed impressed by” the “sweet and lofty words” 
of the condemned man, “explained that Satan often 
transformed himself into an angel of light to delude 
men’s souls.” While his distinguished father. Dr. In- 
crease Mather (President of Harvard), is stated to have 
been one of those who, as the Salem trials continued, 
had the courage to declare his disbelief in the guilt of 
the accused. Dr. Cotton Mather never flinched, and, 
when all was over, persisted that, though errors might 
have been committed on both sides, “which will never 
be understood till the day when Satan shall be bound 
after another manner than he is at this day,” yet, 
“for my own part, I know not that ever I have advanced 
any opinion in the matter of witchcraft, but what 
all the ministers of the Lord that I know of in the world 
whether English or Scotch, or French or Dutch, are of 
the same opinion with me. ” Among the Massachusetts 
justices, whose ill-fortune it was to be concerned in these 
trials, one at least quitted the bench rather than go 
through with them; and of those who “sat through the 
tragedy. . . Judge Sewall. . . afterwards read a re- 
cantation in the Old South Church, bowed down with 
mortification and sorrow.” This incident is not only 
mentioned by Mrs. Gaskell, but gives occasion for the 
very tender and touching close of her narrative. 

The authoress of Lois the Witch was thus only too well 

xxiii 


Introduction 


at Boston — ^which disposed the public mind in Massa- 
chusetts to give way with special readiness to delusive 
terrors. 

The story of the witchcraft “discoveries” and perse- 
cution at Salem, all of which belong to the year 1692, 
may be read in Bryant and Gay’s Popular History of 
the United States (vol. ii., 1878), and in earlier author- 
ities of which a list is given there. It will be seen from 
a reference to this narrative with what skill Mrs. Gaskell 
has made use of the suggestions supplied by her historical 
material. The Indian element is there; for it was an 
old Indian female slave, called Tituba, whose tricks 
first infected some precocious children at Salem village 
with a morbid desire to dabble in the practices of 
sorcery. In Lois the Witch the motive of the wicked 
Prudence’s action is therefore in no sense far-fetched. 
Other details are worked into the progress of the story, 
without violence being done either to its general proba- 
bility, or to its general agreement with the actual course 
of events. The proceedings against Lois seem more or 
less modelled upon those against Rebecca Nourse, of 
whom the historians say that in the midst of a happy 
married life she was suddenly, because of a business 
quarrel in which her husband had become involved, 
subjected to an accusation from which there was no 
escape. 

“The children” cried out “one day against Rebecca Nourse; 
the usual display of hysterics, fits, possessions, took place, 
terrible to the overwrought feelings of the spectators. A clergy- 
man, named Lawson, delivered a most exciting discourse, which 
put the witchcraft trials upon Scripture grounds and confirmed 
all minds. A blameless life and a sweet demeanour at her trial 
could not save Rebecca. The jury were forced to believe her 
innocent but were sent out till they consented. She went the 
way of all the rest to Witches’ Hill. . . 


xxn 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

Of the one or two historical personages introduced 
into the tale, the redoubtable Dr. Cotton Mather at 
all events, the author of The Wonders of the Invisible 
World, being an Account of the Trial of several Witches, 
etc.** (1693), could have no right to complain of the 
prominence here given to his personality. When Stephen 
Burroughs, one of the victims of the Salem panic, was 
hanged, Cotton Mather stood by, and, “when the people 
seemed impressed by” the “sweet and lofty words” 
of the condemned man, “explained that Satan often 
transformed himself into an angel of light to delude 
men’s souls.” While his distinguished father. Dr. In- 
crease Mather (President of Harvard), is stated to have 
been one of those who, as the Salem trials continued, 
had the courage to declare his disbelief in the guilt of 
the accused. Dr. Cotton Mather never flinched, and, 
when all was over, persisted that, though errors might 
have been committed on both sides, “which will never 
be understood till the day when Satan shall be bound 
after another manner than he is at this day,” yet, 
“for my own part, I know not that ever I have advanced 
any opinion in the matter of witchcraft, but what 
all the ministers of the Lord that I know of in the world 
whether English or Scotch, or French or Dutch, are of 
the same opinion with me. ” Among the Massachusetts 
justices, whose ill-fortune it was to be concerned in these 
trials, one at least quitted the bench rather than go 
through with them; and of those who “sat through the 
tragedy. . . Judge Sewall. . . afterwards read a re- 
cantation in the Old South Church, bowed down with 
mortification and sorrow.” This incident is not only 
mentioned by Mrs. Gaskell, but gives occasion for the 
very tender and touching close of her narrative. 

The authoress of Lois the Witch was thus only too well 

xxiii 


Introduction 


provided with material out of which to shape her story. 
That such a theme should have suggested itself to her 
for treatment in a narrative which would need little 
adventitious interest to heighten its tragic force was 
natural enough. The supernatural always had a strong 
attraction for Mrs. Gaskell, and her imagination could 
not fail to concern itself with those human delusions 
which are closely connected with the terrors largely 
fed by an instinctive tendency to which her own mind 
was no stranger. But, while her sweet reasonableness 
subdued all such fancies, no principle which influenced 
her was stronger than her abhorrence of injustice, and 
no conviction held by her was so much part of herself as 
the belief, that what is most divine in man is the for- 
giveness of those who sin against him. Very possibly 
an incident which occurred not many years before she 
wrote Lois the Witch may have first suggested such a 
tale to her. Some time in the early fifties, she was 
staying with her husband in a country-house in Essex, 
when — early one Sunday morning — their host, a county 
magistrate, was hastily summoned to prevent an attempt 
to bring to her death an old woman in a neighbouring 
village, who was suspected by the inhabitants of being 
a witch. The incident, which is not the less true because 
of its seeming improbability, made a deep impression 
upon Mrs. Gaskell, who frequently made mention of it 
in her family. It is an interesting illustration of her 
artistic instinct that Lois, the gentle English girl whom 
across the seas blind chance and blinder superstition, 
egged on by jealousy and malice, turn into a witch and 
put to death as a criminal, is a native not of Puritan 
Essex, but of a quiet little village among the green 
meadows through which flows the silver, glittering 
Avon, the heart of the royalist west. To Mrs. Gaskell 


XXIV 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

herself that was a country full of remembrances of a 
happy, romantic girlhood; and a touch of personal 
sympathy seems thus to be added to her story of the 
innocent victim of slanderous tongues and more inhuman 
misbeliefs. 

The volume {Right at Last, and other Tales) in which 
Lois the Witch was first reprinted also contained the 
tragic story of The Crooked Branch, which had made its 
first appearance in the 1859 Christmas number of All 
the Year Round, where it formed part of the collective 
series called The Haunted House under the separate 
title of The Ghost in the Garden Room. As such, it was 
reprinted in 1903 in one of the pretty volumes of Christ- 
mas stories from Household Words and All the Year 
Round, edited by Charles Dickens ; so that the story has 
led a kind of double life, well suited to its original 
presentment. The introductory page or “link” to The 
Ghost in the Garden Room is palpably from the hand of 
the Editor. 

The dramatic qualities of this story, under whatever 
name, were certain to command immediate interest ; nor 
is it surprising to learn that when, on one occasion, it 
formed the subject of a dramatic reading by the late 
Sir Henry Irving (a great admirer, as I am informed, of 
Mrs. Gaskell’s writings), its effect was quite extraordi- 
nary. Even Irving’s rare power of intensification could 
hardly have added to the pitiful suspense of the final 
scene of this domestic tragedy, the most tragic episode in 
all Mrs. Gaskell’s stories; for in A Dark Night's Work 
the accidental element is paramount. The solemn gloom 
of the catastrophe contrasts very effectively with the 
kindly humour of the opening of the story, in which the 
laconic wooing of Nathan Huntroyd reminds us of that 


XXV 


Introduction 


of Mr. Openshaw in the Manchester Marriage rather than 
of that of the immortal Mr. Barkis. An incomparable 
turn in Nathan’s offer of his heart and hand and farm — 
“Wilt like to come? I ’ll not mislead thee. It ’s dairy 
and it might have been arable” — Mrs. Gaskell owed to 
the humour of a friend. It was taken from a passage 
in the (then unprinted, now only privately printed) 
Country Conversations , admirable transcripts of actual 
talks with poor people which had been read to her in 
manuscript. The general idea of the story of The 
Crooked Branch, the unspeakable “sharpness” of the 
anguish caused by the thanklessness of a wicked son, is 
here worked out with far stronger emotional force than 
either in The Moorland Cottage or in Ruth. Mrs. Gas- 
kell very rarely indeed merely repeated herself.* 

Nothing could be more different in tone and manner 
from the preceding stories than the gay and graceful 
fancy mockingly entitled Curious if True. It delighted 
the readers of the Cornhill Magazine of February, i860, 
and was reprinted in 1865 by Messrs. Smith, Elder & 
Co. in a volume named The Grey Woman, and other 
Tales. The title, suggested, to Mrs. Gaskell, by the 
late Mr. George Smith, is extremely happy; as she 
wrote shortly before the publication of Curious if True, 
“it just makes people have a notion that it might be 
true, which is what is wanted from the beginning.” 
The little piece opens with the sober precision of state- 

* This applies even to details. Though she was not, in one 
sense of the word, a very careful writer, the rapidity of her 
imagination was always moving forward. The recurrence of 
such an incident as the snapping of the thread at the spinning- 
wheel, which, in not very different circumstances, marks the 
preoccupation of Cousin Phillis and of Faith Hickson in Lois 
the Witch, is quite exceptional. 

xxvi 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

ment befitting a descendant of “that sister of Calvin's 
who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham,”* to 
which we are accustomed in stories of the supernatural, 
narrated by Provosts or other dignitaries of unimpeach- 
able accuracy. But we soon find that the region into 
which we are translated is peopled by the harmless 
denizens of fairy-land, and that the fairy-godmother who 
has assembled the ghostly evening-party in the enchanted 
chdteau for our delectation, is our old friend Madame 
D’Aulnoy. The company to whom Mr. Whittingham 
has the honor of a fleeting introduction, Puss-in-Boots, 
the Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding-hood, and the 
rest, are identified with admirable variety of humour. 
Hardly any one of them, however, is touched off quite so 
well as the tender-hearted widow, who in our own day 
would probably not have failed to produce an “intimate ” 
memoir of her late much misunderstood husband — if 
only from natural sympathy with the colour which his 
name recalls: 

“ ‘Alas! alas!’ said she, ‘you too accurately describe a miserable 
passage in my life, which has often been represented in a false 
light. The best of husbands’ — here she sobbed, and became 
slightly inarticulate with her grief — ‘will sometimes be dis- 
pleased. I was young and curious — he was justly angry with 
my disobedience — my brothers were too hasty — the consequence 
is, I became a widow.’” 

From this “interlude of fairies” we return to real life 
in Right at Last, which, as has been only quite recently 
discovered, was first printed in Household Words, No- 
vember 27, 1858, under the title The Sin of a Father, and 
republished in i860 with “other Tales” by Messrs, Samp- 
son, Low & Co. Right at Last can hardly be described as 
one of Mrs. Gaskell’s most successful efforts of its kind; 

* This statement, though frequently repeated, appears to be 
fictitious. 

xxvii 


Introduction 


though there is no want of fidelity to nature in some of 
the characters of the story, from the rough, kindly pro- 
fessor in familiar Edinburgh to the “treasure” of a 
man-servant, a respectful villain of the Littimer type. 
The plot (in the course of which the dubious liberality 
of the convict father remotely recalls the onerous gifts 
of Magwitch in Great Expectations, of which the publi- 
cation, it will be remembered, did not begin till Decem- 
ber, i860), is not managed with perfect consistency; for 
had the brave Margaret before her marriage become 
aware of her lover’s compromising parentage, she could 
not for a time have failed to guess the cause of her hus- 
band’s moody depression. In any case, she is drawn 
with verve, and with the sympathy due to that much- 
discussed species of courage which, for want of a simpler 
term, we are accustomed to call “moral. ” The incident 
of her cleaning her own door-step in the days of small 
means, brought upon her husband and herself by their 
resolution to tell the truth and take the consequences, 
appears to have been borrowed by Mrs. Gaskell from the 
actual experience of a well-known Edinburgh lady. This 
high-minded wife had encouraged her husband as an 
advocate to plead the cause of one on whom the powers 
that were looked askance; and when he was hereupon 
suddenly involved in professional ruin, she who had been 
an admired beauty of Edinburgh ball-rooms did not 
scruple to become her own housemaid. 

The Grey Woman first appeared in All the Year Round 
on January 5, 12, and 19, 1861, and was reprinted with 
“other Tales” by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. in 1865. The 
mise-en-scene of its opening was no doubt suggested to 
Mrs. Gaskell by the remembrance of a happy journey 
she made in 1858 up the Rhine, before a long and happy 

xxviii 


“ Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

stay at Heidelberg with her daughters Meta and Florence. 
Two years afterwards, Mrs. Gaskell, with her daughters 
Marianne, Florence, and Julia, again visited Heidelberg, 
where they were lionised by a young English Professor, 
who was there carrying on the researches which have 
made the name of Sir Henry Roscoe famous in the 
scientific world. “The mill by the Neckar-side” is an 
admirably-chosen scene of smiling peace and prosperity, 
from which the unhappy Anna Scherer of the tale is 
hurried away into the unspeakable terrors of her early 
married life.* The fruitful hills and valleys, and the light- 
hearted population of the Palatinate have, in the eventful 
course of its history, undergone more utter devastation 
and more terrible sufferings than have fallen to the lot 
of any other part of Germany and its people. 

But the main action of the story of The Grey Woman 
is laid further to the north-west, in that part of France 
which lies on the left bank of the Middle Rhine, and 
south of the Moselle. As a matter of fact, in the course 
of the story the miscreants whose evil doings are re- 
counted in it are identified with “the savage and 
mysterious band of robbers called the Chauffeurs, who 
infested all the roads leading to the Rhine, with Schinder- 
hannes at their head. ” 

The annals of brigandage — more especially in the 

* The complications which mark the religious history of the 
Palatinate have not unnaturally involved the narrator of poor 
Anna’s history in one or two inconsistencies. She bids her 
daughter lay her story “before the good priest Schriesheim” ; 
but it is elsewhere stated that she was of the Luthem, and her 
husband of the “Reformed” persuasion; and again, that they 
were married in the court chapel at Karlsruhe. The grounds on 
which Anna justified to herself her second marriage, while her 
villainous first husband was still alive, must be described as 
hazy. 


XXIX 


Introduction 


Rhinelands and the south-west generally, and in the 
neighbouring districts of the Low Countries and France 
— form a very curious chapter in the history of German 
civilisation in the eighteenth century. The institution 
was really a legacy of the Thirty Years’ War, after the 
termination of which it had never died out in these and 
some other parts of Germany; but it was revived with 
the outbreak of hostilities between Prussia and France 
in the days of the Seven Years’ War, and rose to its 
height with the advent of the French Revolution and 
the troubles consequent upon it. I need hardly remind 
the readers of Schiller of the young poet’s attempt to 
infuse something like idealism into the hero of The 
Robbers; and in his less known tale of The Criminal 
because of a lost good-name (Der Verbrecher aus verlorener 
Ehre) there is at least a touch of sentiment. Among 
the leaders or members of the robber-bands which to- 
wards the close of the century infested the Franco- 
German frontier-lands there may have been some whose 
story, character, or manners appealed to the sense of 
the romantic which at that time was so prevalent on 
both sides of the Rhine. Der bairische Hiesel (Matthasus 
Klostermann) , for instance, whose misdeeds, beginning 
with poaching exploits, and interrupted by successive 
periods of imprisonment, ended with his undergoing a 
hideous death in a pious frame of mind, was actually 
celebrated in popular poetry. No such sympathy is 
evoked by the story of the scoundrel whose nickname 
“ Schinderhannes ” (to which he rather objected himself) 
has had the singular fortune of surviving, while the 
appellations of nearly all his associates and competitors 
are forgotten. Johannes Buckler, born at Miihlen near 
Nastatten in Nassau, on May 25, 1778, and hanged at 
Mainz, in the company of nineteen fellow-culprits, on 


XXX 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

November 21, 1803, seems to have been, except in the 
amount of crime he managed to crowd into his brief 
career, and the blaze of notoriety in which it ended,* 
a somewhat ordinary kind of rascal. Certainly, there is 
hardly a redeeming feature to be found in what is handed 
down of his actions and conduct — he was neither very 
courageous nor very faithful to his comrades; but ex- 
tenuating circumstances may be found in the times in 
which he lived and the circumstances in which he had — 
partly as a child in a soldiers’ camp — been brought up. 
But he seems to have suited the popular fancy, with his 
long knife, rifle, brace of pistols, and axe, and the display 
which was part of his character; and it is possible that 
his special hostility to the Jews may not have unfavour- 
ably affected the impression which he made. After the 
first promise of his subsequent career had been shown 
forth in his conduct, he was apprenticed to an execu- 
tioner (Schinder ) ; but soon he relapsed into his chosen 
line of felony, and, having about 1798 found his way 
into the company of Mosebach of Lieb hausen, the first 
organizer of systematic robbery of horses and other 
property in the Hundsriick, he began a regular career of 
crime. There is no necessity for pursuing this on the 
present occasion, since it will be clear from what has been 
already said that the story of The Grey Woman is not 
specially based on any part of the biography of “Schin- 
derhannes. ” One or two incidents in the latter may 
however have suggested certain details in Mrs. Gaskell’s 
narrative. 

Near Coblenz Schinderhannes and a wandering min- 

* The energy with which he and his band, together with a 
number of other robbers, were finally brought to trial, was due 
to the French administration on the left bank of the Rhine. 
New brooms sweep clean. 


XXXI 


Introduction 


strel, Christian Reinhard, whom he had picked up on the 
way, are stated to have robbed a Marquis La Ferri^re 
of his money and equipage, Schinderhannes even chang- 
ing clothes with the Marquis. (This may have conceiv- 
ably suggested the nobleman’s disguise assumed by the 
robber-chief of our story.) They sold the carriage to 
two Frenchmen, who were afterwards arrested at Frank- 
fort as Schinderhannes and Reinhard. 

The castle, so admirably described in the story, 
recalls the dismantled castle of Schmittburg, which 
Schinderhannes at one time inhabited with a girl who 
was his paramour, while the robbers of his band settled 
themselves in the castle-chapel. Not far from the 
Schmittburg was the Kallenfels, a sheer rock surmounted 
by a farmstead, whither, after the commission of a 
violent robbery, Schinderhannes, with his female com- 
panion and four of the robbers, for safety’s sake migrated 
for a sojourn of eleven days. 

Finally, the mysterious consigne by which the Chauf- 
feurs in the story mark the successive stages of what 
they deem to be their accomplished vengeance, has its 
counterpart in the three successive warnings issued by 
Schinderhannes to a farmer who responded too slowly 
to a process of blackmailing: 

j 

“ttt consider;” 

with II.” and “N--” III.” following. The first 

of these missives was signed ''Johann durch den WaldJ' 
a title which Johann Buckler preferred to the oppro- 
brious designation under which he still lives in popular 
tradition.* 

* The most easily accessible account of Schinderhannes is 
that by C. Rauchhaupt, a specialist on the subject (3rded“., 
Kreuznach, s.d.). Much the same facts are given in briefer 
xxxii 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

On the whole, and in the absence of any record on the 
subject, I am inclined to conclude that Mrs. Gaskell had 
met with some French version of the story of Schinder- 
hannes or some other robber-chief of his times ; and that 
from this source she derived the name of the ''Chauf- 
feurs/' and perhaps some of the incidents of her story. 
At the same time, there is no reason whatever for sup- 
posing that by far the most interesting portion of it — 
the escape of Anna and her faithful, self-sacrificing maid 
Amante from the robbers’ castle, and their long and al- 
most desperate flight — was not the original invention 
of the writer. It must be allowed that M. de La Tourelle 
from his own point of view committed a quite inexplicable 
blunder in sending for a maid to attend his wife ; but the 
character of the brave Amante is the best thing in the 
story, and her death its saddest incident. 

Six Weeks at Heppenheim, which was first published 
in the Cornhill Magazine in. May, 1862, and reprinted 
with The Grey Woman and other Tales by Messrs. Smith, 
Elder & Co. in 1865, forms a charming pendant to the 
rather gruesome story which Mrs. Gaskell had brought 
home from her German travels. This time we are 
transported into the very heart of the genial wine-coun- 
try of the Upper-Rhine, into the so-called Bergstrasse 
opposite Worms, down which, in the dire days of the 
Thirty Years’ War, the invading hosts passed into the 
Palatinate, without meeting with much resistance from 
the ecclesiastical rulers of this by-street of the great 
Pfaffengasse. In 1803 the famous Reichsdeputations- 

form in J. E. Hitzig and W. Haring (W. Alexis)’s Neuer Pitaval^ 
continued by A. Vollert, new series, vol. vi. (Leipzig, 1871). 
On the whole subject of German brigandage towards the close 
of the eighteenth century, see chap. 48 of vol. ii. of A. Sach's 
Deutsches Leben in der Vergangenheit (Halle, 1891), 
xxxiii 


Introduction 


hauptschluss secularised the archiepiscopal electorate of 
Mainz, to which Heppenheim and Lorsch belonged, and 
these possessions, with not a few others (103 square 
geographical miles and 210,000 “souls” in all), passed 
into the willing hands of Duke Lewis X. of Hesse-Darm- 
stadt. As, three years later, he assumed the title of 
“Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine,” I have ven- 
tured to correct Herr Muller’s designation of his vig- 
ilant sovereign by an inferior title. For the rest, the 
nicety with which this singularly truthful little picture 
of real life is fitted into its frame bears a striking testi- 
mony to Mrs. Gaskell’s extraordinary quickness and 
accuracy of observation. She had no very familiar 
knowledge of South German peasant life — such as that 
which the late Lady Verney possessed of the peasant 
life of France — and “Heppenheim” was probably only 
a name happily chosen to suit a village and a village-inn 
by which she was attracted, when in the vicinity of the 
Rhine. But she had that true interest in all things 
human — of which things national, provincial, and local 
are after all only sections or subsections — ^which makes 
all travelling delightful and ambulando instructive. 
Thus, while she informed herself as to the rules of the 
vineyards, and the marriage customs of their cultivators, 
she had an eye for every detail of daily life and for every 
idiom of language. (“Dw armes Wurm*’ is a real bit of 
German, the full significance of which is only known to 
those who are familiar with the aspect of a real Wickel- 
kind.) Six Weeks at Heppenheim in its reality, fresh- 
ness, and wholesome avoidance of anything approaching 
to artificial pathos, breathes the spirit of Berthold Auer- 
bach ; and, as in the Dorfgeschichten, so a touch of poetry 
is not wanting in the gentle young Oxonian’s simple 
tale of Thekla and her faithful master. 


JCXXIV 





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A'''' s^.- 







Introduction 


certain repetitions which are to be found there. She 
was an acute observer of life, and of the deeper signi- 
ficance of common experiences; but she lacked that 
delicacy of touch and spiritual sympathy which were 
characteristic of all Mrs. Gaskell’s creations. In every 
period or phase of her literary labours, A Dark Night's 
Work illustrates very signally the wide difference between 
this delicacy of touch and insipidity. The figure of 
Canon Livingstone, whom in most stories of the kind one 
would have been prepared to take for granted, and who 
has really as little to do with the plot of the piece as he 
has with the boisterous hilarity of the Roman cor so, is 
by no means the least sympathetic among its dramatis 
personae. But there is something more than delicacy of 
touch in at least part of the story. The effect of the 
deed, in which he was not even a participant, upon the 
simple single-minded Dixon is depicted with extraor- 
dinary truthfulness ; and his solemn, mournful figure — 
in the dock and in prison — haunts the memory like an 
actual experience of the sorrowfulness of life. 

The three papers entitled French Life, which originally 
appeared in Fraser's Magazine in April, May, and June, 
1864, and are now for the first time reprinted, gave great 
pleasure when they introduced themselves to the public, 
and are in their way thoroughly characteristic of the 
writer. Mrs. Gaskell had in a singular degree the gift 
of what I may call intimacy; and these papers, which 
pretend to nothing but giving some glimpses of particular 
sides of French life from within, most successfully ac- 
complish this particular purpose. It was said of Madame 
R^camier, who is mentioned in one of these papers as 
having had in perfection “ the sixth sense, which taught 
her when to speak, and when to be silent/’ qu'elle se 
XXX vi 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

souvenait avec goUt — to which a more cynical critic added, 
**qu'elle savait s'ennuyer avec une grace parfaite.*' Of 
Mrs. Gaskell it may be asserted that, while she observed 
with quick insight, she chronicled with unfailing tact. 

For the things she noted, whether in Madame A ’s 

hospitable bed-room, or in the silken chamber of the 
condescending lionne, or in the ample drawing-room 

where Madame E dispensed tea at a guinea a pound 

to those who cared for the beverage, were always things 
distinctive and things possessed of a human interest. 
And there is one special association which gives a charm 
of its own to these papers. When in 1862 she set forth 
on her excursion into Brittany in the company of her 
daughter Meta and their intimate friend Miss Isabel 
Thompson (now Mrs. William Sidgwick), it was “with a 
happy mixture of sea, heath, rocks, ferns, and Madame 
de S^vigne in their hands,” that the happy company 
started on its visit of investigation. I may leave her 
to describe that pleasant journey from Paris (past 
Rambouillet) to Chartres, and thence to Vitr^, only a 
few miles from which lies the central object of this 
pilgrimage, Madame deS^vign^’s chdteau of Les Rochers. 
Readers who have not themselves visited the scene, 
with a sketch of which, taken on the occasion, I am 
allowed to embellish this volume, may compare with 
Mrs. Gaskell’s description of the chdteau and its surround- 
ings, which cannot have changed very much since 
Madame de Sevign^ looked upon them (especially as in 
her eyes its chief beauties lay in its parterre and its pare ) , 
with the more elaborate picture drawn by Gaston Boissier, 
in his exquisite little monograph in the Grands Ecrivains 
Frangais series. Should any of my readers turn to that 
book, I think they can hardly fail to be attracted by 
what is said in it of the way in which Madame de S^vign^ 
xxxvii 


Introduction 


looked upon and treated nature. She deliberately 
absorbed herself in it; so that one spring, after having 
observed and noted every detail of the return of life in 
bush and tree, she could sit down, and with “amusing 
confidence” remark: “// me semble qu'en cas de hesoin 
je saurais bien faire un printemps.'' Like her favourite 
Madame de Sevigne, whose life, as we know, she pur- 
posed to have written, and would have written with no 
common inner sympathy, Mrs. Gaskell could write as she 
saw, and the fresh springtide, like the golden summer 
and the chill winter, transferred themselves to her page 
as they took possession of her mind. “The quietness 
of all things,” she writes on a dark night at Avignon in 
the solitude of her lofty chamber, where she has been 
reading the narrative of a fearful domestic tragedy of 
long ago, “the dead stillness of the hour, has made me 
realise all the facts deposed to, as if they had happened 
to-day. ” 

The associations of the past then, whether grave or 
gay — the grim memories of the Revolution which always 
seem to have haunted Mrs. Gaskell in Paris, or in thinking 
of Paris, and the irrecoverably pleasant customs which 
are what we all prefer to remember of the ancien regime — 
add both interest and distinction to these papers. But 
the Marquise de Villette, and Marly, and the conscien- 
tious Robespierre, and the witty Prince de Ligne them- 
selves, are but shadows of the past; it is only those who 
live for us in their writings to whom we are drawn as 
to contemporaries and friends. There is, however, in 
these papers at least one most interesting portrait 
(for the gracious figure of Montalembert only flits across 
the scene) which Mrs. Gaskell was enabled to paint 
from the life, though it was not more than a year after 
their meeting that, in the words of the late Sir Mount- 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

Stuart Grant-Duff — ^words which must have been used 
by many other of her friends — Madame de Circourt was 
“released from her long martyrdom.” Sainte-Beuve, 
whom the English diarist quotes, spoke of her as “torn 
away from Parisian society and her friends of every 
country. All who have known and been admitted to a 
share in the trueness of her heart and her intellect, 
will understand the significance of this loss and the 
gap which it leaves behind it.” And he sums up her 
social gifts and charms in words which I will venture 
to translate, as specially germane to Mrs. Gaskell’s own 
tribute: 

“The special feature of Madame de Circourt’s salon was that 
intellect gave the right of admission to it as by a kind of freedom 
of the city. Pious as she was and firmly fixed in her beliefs, 
no prejudice stood in her way, so soon as she had become aware 
that she had to do with a man of mind and of talent. Whatever 
might be your political associations or your philosophical start- 
ing point, a friendly and sympathetic welcome awaited you from 
that armchair, to which for years she had been confined by cruel 
sufferings concealed beneath an irresistible grace and an un- 
changeable art of sociability. “ 

Mrs. Gaskell, as was to be expected, recognised not 
only the exquisite charm of Madame de Circourt’s 
presence, but the final cause of that charm. “Is not 
Christianity,” she asks, “the very core of the heart of 
all gracious courtesy? ” And she appeals to Elizabethan 
authority for a quaint way of stating this profound 
truth. But she might have gone further back — to 
Chaucer at all events — and recalled the noble 
lines : 


“Crist wol we claime of him our gentillesse, 
Not of our elders for hir old richesse, ” 
jcxxix 


Introduction 


It was their virtuous living which made them to be 
called gentlemen.* 

The bright little paper entitled The Shah's English 
Garden is, thanks to good offices already acknowledged in 
my Prefatory Note, here for the first time reprinted from 
Household Words, where it made its original appearance 
on June 19, 1852. It therefore belongs to an early 
period in Mrs. Gaskell’s literary life; and, indeed, carries 
us back to the days of one of her earliest stories. 
ForTeddesley (near Penkridge in Staffordshire), where 
Mrs. Gaskell “ interviewed ” Mr. Burton, formerly head- 
gardener to Shah Nasr-ed-Din, “ King of Kings, ” was the 
country-seat of Lord Hatherton, who married the beau- 
tiful widow, Mrs. Davenport, of Capesthorne in Cheshire 
(see Introduction to The Sexton's Hero in Vol. I. of this 

*A curious contrast (on which it is necessary to dwell) sug- 
gests itself with an earlier Parisian acquaintance which, on a 
visit made some years earlier, Mrs. Gaskell had made, likewise 
through her friend Madame Mohl. On March 23, 1855, Prosper 
M^rim^e writes to Mrs. Nassau Senior the younger, with whom 
he had some little time before entered into a correspondence, 
and who had repeatedly urged him to read Mrs. Gaskell’s Ruth, 
then recently published: “I have read Ruth and, what is more, 
1 have seen the author, whom Madame Mohl is to bring to me 
to-morrow to drink du the jaune.” He avows that his sensi- 
bility, always far more affected by the death of the heroine of a 
book than it would be by that of a man by his side, had given 
him (as our younger generation would say) a bad time with 
Ruth, whose fate he had foreseen from page i. He renders 
justice to the talent and truth to nature revealed by Mrs Gas- 
kell’s work; but then, more suo, he goes off into the cynical 
comment that all would have been well with Ruth, if she had 
had more money in her purse. His statement that Mrs. Gaskell 
had told him of Ruth having been publicly burnt “in the name 
of immorality” must be taken with a very large grain of salt. 
(See Prosper Merim^e, by the Comte d’Haussonville, Paris, 
1885.) 


“Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

edition). Mr. Burton’s not very sympathetic account 
of the “reforming” Shah’s restricted interest in his own 
household affairs is worth reading even at the present 
day, when Teheran, which (in Lancashire phrase) he 
“beautified” in 1870, has become so much better known, 
and when his successor is a personage familiar, not only 
to the West End, but to the City. Indeed, it was in a 
Scottish garden, not three miles from where I write, 
that, by a whimsical coincidence, I had some years ago 
the unexpected honour of being present at the reception 
of H. M. the Shah. 

More than two-thirds of the story, here for the first 
time reprinted under the title of Crowley Castle, had been 
put into type for the present edition from a MS. left by 
Mrs. Gaskell, when it was identified with the first of the 
tales included in the 1863 Christmas number of All the 
Year Round, still so well remembered for Charles Dickens’ 
Introduction to Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings. Mrs. Gaskell’s 
tale there had the place of honour as an account of How 
the First Floor went to Crowley Castle, prefaced by the 
single sentence — 

“I have come back to London, Major, possessed by a family- 
story that I have picked up in the country.” 

I have here printed the opening sentences as they 
appear in the MS. ; the rest almost exactly as it stands in 
All the Year Round. There is no material difference 
between the MS., so far as it goes, and the printed text, 
though the latter “every here and there” shows signs 
of compression. The MS. comes to a close, just before 
Theresa’s indignation against what she deems the apathy 
of Bessy enters into a violent phase of which Victorine 
malignantly takes note, and before the height of the 

xli 


Introduction 


interest is reached. But the constructive skill with 
which the ultimate development of the plot is prepared, 
is notable from the first; and this, together ‘ with the 
familiarity with French surroundings exhibited in the 
earlier part of the narrative, would have sufficed to show 
that it belongs to a relatively advanced period of Mrs- 
Gaskell’s literary work. Y et in her later years she hardly 
ever wrote anything so entirely without the ingredient 
of humour which is wanting to none of her larger pro- 
ductions, in any period of her life. Indeed, Victorine, 
the devoted but designing French lady’s-maid, belongs 
to a sphere of fiction in which Mrs. Gaskell hardly ever 
set foot. The contrast between Theresa and Bessy, on 
the other hand, was one of those conflicts of personality 
which no hand was better able to delineate with 
fidelity to nature than her own; but the conditions of 
her task in this case allowed of no elaboration of 
detail. 

In conclusion, I think that the readers of this edition 
will be pleased by the inclusion in it of two fragments of 
Ghost Stones found, without date or other clue to 
the period of their production, among Mrs. Gaskell’s 
papers, and now for the first time put in print. The 
attraction exercised upon her by mysterious incidents 
suggestive of the supernatural has already been suffi- 
ciently illustrated ; but these fragments are, each in its own 
way, written with so much simple grace, that they will, 
I think, give to others the same pleasure as that which 
they give to myself. The earlier of the pair is enlivened 
by a sly humour which, one might almost suppose, 
would have stood the night-capped traveller in good 
stead during the nocturnal interview awaiting her; 
the second adds a delightful page, descriptive of one of 
xlii 


« Cousin Phillis,” etc. 

those dales — in North Lancashire or thereabouts — 
which Mrs. Gaskell loved, and its moorland surround- 
ings. 

A. W. W. 

September t 1906 


xliii 


V 



COUSIN PHILLIS 


PAET I 

It is a great thing for a lad, when he is first turned into the 
independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so 
satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate 
down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’s 
shop in the county-town of Eltham. My father had left 
me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain 
precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance in the new 
course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk 
under the engineer who had undertaken to make the little 
branch line from Eltham to Hornby. My father had got 
me this situation, which was in a position rather above his 
own in life ; or perhaps I should say, above the station in 
which he was born and bred; for he was raising himself 
every year in men’s consideration and respect. He was a 
mechanic by trade ; but he had some inventive genius, and 
a great deal of perseverance, and had devised several valuable 
improvements in railway machinery. He did not do this for 
profit, though, as was reasonable, what came in the natural 
course of things was acceptable; he worked out his ideas, 
because, as he said, “ until he could put them into shape, 
they plagued him by night and by day.” But this is enough 
about my dear father ; it is a good thing for a country where 
there are many like him. He was a sturdy Independent by 
descent and conviction ; and this it was, I believe, which 
made him place me in the lodgings at the pastry-cook’s. 
The shop was kept by the two sisters of our minister at 
home ; and this was considered as a sort of safeguard to my 

I B 


Cousin Phillis 

morals, when I was turned loose upon the temptations of 
the county-town, with a salary of thirty pounds a year. 

My father had given up two precious days, and put on 
his Sunday clothes, in order to bring me to Eltham, and 
accompany me, first to the office, to introduce me to my new 
master (who was under some obligations to my father for a 
suggestion), and next to take me to call on the Independent 
minister of the little congregation at Eltham. And then he 
left me ; and, though sorry to part with him, I now began 
to taste with relish the pleasure of being my own master. 
I unpacked the hamper that my mother had provided me 
with, and smelt the pots of preserve with all the delight of 
a possessor who might break into their contents at any time 
he pleased. I handled, and weighed in my fancy, the home- 
cured ham, which seemed to promise me interminable feasts ; 
and, above all, there was the fine savour of knowing that I 
might eat of these dainties when I liked, at my sole will, not 
dependent on the pleasure of any one else, however indul- 
gent. I stowed my eatables away in the little corner cup- 
board — that room was all comers, and everything was placed 
in a comer, the fireplace, the window, the cupboard; I 
myself seemed to be the only thing in the middle, and there 
was hardly room for me. The table was made of a folding 
leaf under the window, and the window looked out upon the 
market-place; so the studies for the prosecution of which 
my father had brought himself to pay extra for a sitting- 
room for me ran a considerable chance of being diverted 
from books to men and women. I was to have my meals 
with the two elderly Miss Dawsons in the little parlour 
behind the three-cornered shop downstairs — my breakfasts 
and dinners at least ; for, as my hours in an evening were 
likely to be uncertain, my tea or supper was to be an 
independent meal. 

Then, after this pride and satisfaction, came a sense of 
desolation. I had never been from home before, and I 
was an only child ; and, though my father’s spoken maxim 
had been, “Spare the rod, and spoil the child,” yet, 

2 


Cousin Phillis 

unconsciously, his heart had yearned after me, and his ways 
towards me were more tender than he knew, or would have 
approved of in himself, could he have known. My mother, 
who never professed sternness, was far more severe than my 
father; perhaps my boyish faults annoyed her more; for 
I remember, now that I have written the above words, how 
she pleaded for me once in my riper years, when I had 
really offended against my father’s sense of right. 

But I have nothing to do with that now. It is about 
cousin Phillis that I am going to write, and as yet I am far 
enough from even saying who cousin Phillis was. 

For some months after I was settled in Eltham, the new 
employment in which I was engaged — ^the new independence 
of my life — occupied all my thoughts. I was at my desk by 
eight o’clock, home to dinner at one, back at the office by 
two. The afternoon work was more uncertain than the 
morning’s ; it might be the same, or it might be that I had 
to accompany Mr. Holdsworth, the managing engineer, to 
some point on the line between Eltham and Hornby. This 
I always enjoyed, because of the variety, and because of the 
country we traversed (which was very wild and pretty), and 
because I was thrown into companionship with Mr. Holds- 
worth, who held the position of hero in my boyish mind. 
He was a young man of five-and-twenty or so, and was in a 
station above mine, both by birth and education ; and he had 
travelled on the Continent, and wore mustachios and whiskers 
of a somewhat foreign fashion. I was proud of being seen 
vdth him. He was really a fine fellow, in a good number of 
ways, and I might have fallen into much worse hands. 

Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of my weekly 
doings — my father had insisted upon this ; but there was so 
little variety in my fife that I often found it hard work to fill 
a letter. On Sundays I went twice to chapel, up a dark 
narrow entry, to hear droning hymns, and long prayers, and 
a still longer sermon, preached to a small congregation, of 
which I was, by nearly a score of years, the youngest 
member. Occasionally, Mr. Peters, the minister, would ask 

3 


Cousin Phillis 

me home to tea after the second service. I dreaded the 
honour ; for I usually sate on the edge of my chair all the 
evening, and answered solemn questions, put in a deep bass 
voice, until household prayer-time came, at eight o’clock, 
when Mrs. Peters came in, smoothing down her apron, and 
the maid-of-all-work followed, and first a sermon, and then 
a chapter, was read, and a long impromptu prayer followed, 
till some instinct told Mr. Peters that supper-time had come, 
and we rose from our knees with hunger for our predominant 
feeling^ Over supper, the minister did unbend a little into 
one or two ponderous jokes, as if to show me that ministers 
were men, after all. And then, at ten o’clock, I went home, 
and enjoyed my long-repressed yawns in the three-cornered 
room before going to bed. 

Dinah and Hannah Dawson, so their names were put on 
the board above the shop-door— I always called them Miss 
Dawson and Miss Hannah — considered these visits of mine 
to Mr. Peters as the greatest honour a young man could 
have ; and evidently thought that if, after such privileges, I 
did not work out my salvation, I was a sort of modern Judas 
Iscariot. On the contrary, they shook their heads over my 
intercourse with Mr. Holdsworth. He had been so kind 
to me in many ways, that when I cut into my ham, I 
hovered over the thought of asking him to tea in my room ; 
more especially as the annual fair was being held in Eltham 
market-place, and the sight of the booths, the merry-go- 
rounds, the wild-beast shows, and such country pomps, was 
(as I thought at seventeen) very attractive. But, when I 
ventured to allude to my wish in even distant terms. Miss 
Hannah caught me up, and spoke of the sinfulness of such 
sights, and something about wallowing in the mire, and then 
vaulted into France, and spoke evil of the nation, and all 
who had ever set foot therein ; till, seeing that her anger was 
concentrating itself into a point, and that that point was Mr. 
Holdsworth, I thought it would be better to finish my 
breakfast, and make what haste I could out of the sound of 
her voice. I rather wondered afterwards to hear her and 

4 


Cousin Phillis 

Miss Dawson counting up their weekly profits with glee, and 
saying that a pastry-cook’s shop in the corner of the market- 
place, in Eltham-fair week, was no such bad thing. How- 
ever, I never ventured to ask Mr. Holdsworth to my lodgings. 

There is not much to tell about this first year of mine at 
Eltham. But when I was nearly nineteen, and beginning 
to think of whiskers on my own account, I came to know 
cousin Phillis, whose very existence had been unknown to me 
till then. Mr. Holdsworth and I had been out to Heath- 
bridge for a day, working hard. Heath bridge was near 
Hornby, for our line of railway was above half finished. 
Of course a day’s outing was a great thing to tell about in my 
weekly letters ; and I fell to describing the country — a fault 
I was not often guilty of. I told my father of the bogs, all 
over wild myrtle and soft moss, and shaking ground, over 
which we had to carry our line ; and how Mr. Holdsworth 
and I had gone for our mid-day meals — for we had to stay 
here for two days and a night — to a pretty village hard-by, 
Heathbridge proper ; and how I hoped we should often have 
to go there, for the shaking, uncertain ground was puzzling 
our engineers — one end of the line going up as soon as the 
other was weighted down. (I had no thought for the share- 
holders’ interests, as may be seen ; we had to make a new 
line on firmer ground, before the junction railway was com- 
pleted.) I told all this at great length, thankful to fill up 
my paper. By return-letter, I heard that a second cousin of 
my mother’s was married to the Independent minister of 
Hornby, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at Heath- 
bridge proper: the very Heathbridge I had described— or so 
my mother believed ; for she had never seen her cousin Phillis 
Green, who was something of an heiress (my father believed), 
being her father’s only child; and old Thomas Green had 
owned an estate of near upon fifty acres, which must have 
come to his daughter. My mother’s feeling of kinship 
seemed to have been strongly stirred by the mention of 
Heathbridge ; for my father said she desired me, if ever I 
went thither again, to make inquiry for the Eeverend 

5 


Cousin Phillis 

Ebenezer Holman; and, if indeed he lived there, I was 
further to ask if he had not married one Phillis Green, and, 
if both these questions were answered in the affirmative, 
I was to go and introduce myself as the only child of 
Margaret Manning, born Moneypenny. I was enraged at 
myself for having named Heathbridge at all, when I found 
what it was drawing down upon me. One Independent 
minister, as I said to myself, was enough for any man ; and 
here I knew (that is to say, I had been catechised on Sabbath- 
mornings by) Mr. Hunter, our minister at home ; and I had 
had to be civil to old Peters at Eltham, and behave myself 
for five hours running, whenever he asked me to tea at his 
house ; and now, just as I felt the free air blowing about me 
up at Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and 
I should perhaps have to be catechised by him, or else asked 
to tea at his house. Besides, I did not like pushing myself 
upon strangers, who perhaps had never heard of my 
mother’s name, and, such an odd name as it was — Money- 
penny ; and, if they had, had never cared more for her than 
she had for them, apparently, until this unlucky mention 
of Heathbridge. 

Still, I would not disobey my parents in such a trifle, 
however irksome it might be. So, the next time our business 
took me to Heathbridge, and we were dining in the httle 
sanded inn-parlour, I took the opportunity of Mr. Holds- 
worth’s being out of the room, and asked the questions, 
which I was bidden to ask, of the rosy-cheeked maid. I was 
either unintelligible or she was stupid ; for she said she did 
not know, but would ask master ; and, of course, the landlord 
came in to understand what it was I wanted to know ; and 
I had to bring out all my stammering inquiries before Mr. 
Holdsworth, who would never have attended to them, I dare 
say, if I had not blushed and blundered, and made such a 
fool of myself. 

“ Yes,” the landlord said, “ the Hope Farm was in 
Heathbridge proper, and the owner’s name was Holman, 
and he was an Independent minister, and, as far as the 

6 


Cousin Phillis 

landlord could tell, his wife’s Christian name was Phillis ; 
anyhow, her maiden name was Green.” 

“ Eelations of yours ? ” asked Mr. Holdsworth. 

“ No, sir — only my mother’s second cousins. Yes, I 
suppose they are relations. But I never saw them in my 
life.” 

“The Hope Farm is not a stone’s throw from here,” 
said the officious landlord, going to the window. “ If you 
carry your eye over yon bed of hollyhocks, over the damson- 
trees in the orchard yonder, you may see a stack of queer- 
like stone chimneys. Them is the Hope Farm chimneys ; 
it’s an old place, though Holman keeps it in good order.” 

Mr. Holdsworth had risen from the table with more 
promptitude than I had, and was standing by the window, 
looking. At the landlord’s last words, he turned round, 
smihng — “ It is not often that parsons know how to keep 
land in order, is it ? ” 

“ Beg pardon, sir, but I must speak as I find ; and 
minister Holman — we call the Church clergyman here 
‘ parson,’ sir ; he would be a bit jealous, if he heard a 
Dissenter called parson — minister Holman knows what he’s 
about, as well as e’er a farmer in the neighbourhood. He 
gives up five days a week to his own work, and two to the 
Lord’s ; and it is difficult to say which he works hardest at. 
He spends Saturday and Sunday a- writing sermons and 
a-visiting his flock at Hornby ; and at five o’clock on Monday 
morning he’ll be guiding his plough, in the Hope Farm 
yonder, just as well as if he could neither read nor write. 
But your dinner will be getting cold, gentlemen.” 

So we went back to table. After a while, Mr. Holdsworth 
broke the silence— “ If I were you. Manning, I’d look up 
these relations of yours. You can go and see what they’re 
hke, while we’re waiting for Dobson’s estimates ; and I’ll 
smoke a cigar in the garden meanwhile.” 

“ Thank you, sir. But I don’t know them, and I don’t 
think I want to know them.” 

“ What did you ask all those questions for, then 7 ” said 
7 


Cousin Phillis 

he, looking quickly up at me. He had no notion of doing or 
saying things without a purpose. I did not answer; so he 
continued — “ Make up your mind, and go off and see what 
this farmer-minister is like, and come back and tell me — I 
should like to hear.” 

I was so in the habit of yielding to his authority, or in- 
fluence ; that I never thought of resisting, but went on my 
errand ; though I remember feeling as if I would rather have 
had my head cut off. The landlord, who had evidently taken 
an interest in the event of our discussion, in a way that country 
landlords have, accompanied me to the house-door and gave 
me repeated directions, as if I was likely to miss my way in 
two hundred yards. But I listened to him, for I was glad of 
the delay, to screw up my courage for the effort of facing 
unknown people and introducing myself. I went along the 
lane, I recollect, switching at all the taller roadside weeds ; 
till, after a turn or two, I found myself close in front of the 
Hope Farm. There was a garden between the house and 
the shady, grassy lane ; I afterwards found that this garden 
was called the court : perhaps because there was a low wall 
round it, with an iron railing on the top of the wall, and two 
great gates, between pillars crowned with stone balls, for a 
state entrance to the flagged path leading up to the front 
door. It was not the habit of the place to go in either by 
these great gates or by the front door; the gates, indeed, 
were locked, as I found, though the door stood wide open. 
I had to go round by a side-path, slightly worn, on a broad, 
grassy way, which led past the court-wall, past a horse- 
mount, half covered with stone- crop and a little wild yellow 
fumitory, to another door — “ the curate,” as I found it was 
termed by the master of the house, while the front door, 
‘‘ handsome and all for show ”, was termed “ the rector.” I 
knocked with my hand upon the “ curate ” door ; 'a tall girl, 
about my own age, as I thought, came and opened it, and 
stood there silent, waiting to know my errand. I see her 
now — cousin Philis. The westering sun shone full upon her, 
and made a slanting stream of light into the room within. 

8 


Cousin Phillis 

She was dressed in dark blue cotton of some kind, up to her 
throat, down to her wrists, with a little frill of the same, 
wherever it touched her white skin. And such a white skin 
as it was ! I have never seen the like. She had light hair, 
nearer yellow than any other colour. She looked me steadily 
in the face with large, quiet eyes, wondering, but untroubled 
by the sight of a stranger. I thought it odd that so old, so full- 
grown as she was, she should wear a pinafore over her gown. 

Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in 
reply to her mute inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman’s 
voice called out, “ Who is it, Phillis ? If it is any one for 
butter- milk, send them round to the back door.” 

I thought I would rather speak to the owner of that voice 
than to the girl before me ; so I passed her, and stood at the 
entrance of a room, hat in hand ; for this side-door opened 
straight into the hall or house-place, where the family sate 
when work was done. There was a brisk little woman, of 
forty or so, ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light 
of a long vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me 
distrustfully till I began to speak. “ My name is Paul 
Manning,” said I ; but I saw she did not know the name. 
“ My mother’s name was Moneypenny,” said I — “ Margaret 
Moneypenny.” 

“ And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,” 
said Mrs. Holman eagerly. “ And you’ll be her son. Sit 
down ! I am right glad to see you. To think of your being 
Margaret’s son ! Why, she was almost a child not so long 
ago. Well, to be sure, it is five-and- twenty years ago. And 
what brings you into these parts ? ” 

She sate down herself, as if oppressed by her curiosity as 
to all the five-and-twenty years that had passed by since she 
had seen my mother. Her daughter Phillis took up her 
knitting — a long grey worsted man’s-stocking, I remember — 
and knitted away without looking at her work. I felt that 
the steady gaze of those deep grey eyes was upon me, though 
once, when I stealthily raised mine to hers, she was examin- 
ing something on the wall above my head. 

9 


Cousin Phillis 

When I had answered all my cousin Holman’s questions, 
she heaved a long breath, and said, “ To think of Margaret 
Moneypenny’s boy being in our house ! I wish the minister 
was here. Phillis, in what field is thy father to-day ? ” 

“ In the five-acre ; they are beginning to cut the com.” 

“ He’ll not like being sent for, then ; else I should have 
liked you to have seen the minister. But the five-acre is a 
good step off. You shall have a glass of wine and a bit of 
cake, before you stir from this house, though. You’re bound 
to go, you say ; or else the minister comes in mostly when 
the men have their four o’clock.” 

“ I must go — I ought to have been off before now.” 

“Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.” She gave her 
daughter some whispered directions, and Phillis left the 
room. 

“ She is my cousin, is she not ? ” I asked. I knew she 
was; but somehow I wanted to talk of her, and did not 
know how to begin. 

“ Yes — Phillis Holman. She is our only child — now.” 

Either from that “ now,” or from a strange momentary 
wistfulness in her eyes, I knew that there had been more 
children, who were now dead. 

“ How old is cousin Phillis ? ” said I, scarcely venturing on 
the new name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call 
her by it ; but cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering 
straight to the purpose. 

“ Seventeen last May-day ; but the minister does not like 
to hear me calling it ‘ May-day ’,” said she, checking herself 
with a httle awe. “ Phillis was seventeen on the first day 
of May last,” she repeated in an emended edition. 

“ And I am nineteen in another month,” thought I to 
myself ; I don’t know why. 

Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake 
upon it. 

“ We keep a house-servant,” said cousin Holman ; “ but ' 
it is chuming-day, and she is busy.” It was meant as a 
little proud apology for her daughter’s being the handmaiden. 

lo 


Cousin Phillis 

“ I like doing it, mother,” said Phillis, in her grave, full 
voice. 

I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament — who, 
I could not recollect — being served and waited upon by the 
daughter of the host. Was I like Abraham’s steward, when 
Eebekah gave him to drink at the well ? I thought Isaac 
had not gone the pleasantest way to work in winning him a 
wife. But Phillis never thought about such things. She 
was a stately, gracious young woman, in the dress, and with 
the simplicity, of a child. 

As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my new- 
found cousin and her husband; and then I ventured to 
name my cousin Phillis with a little bow of my head towards 
her ; but I was too awkward to look and see how she took 
my compliment. “ I must go, now,” said I, rising. 

Neither of the women had thought of sharing in the 
wine ; cousin Holman had broken a bit of cake for form’s 
sake. 

“I wish the minister had been within,” said his wife, 
rising too. Secretly I was very glad he was not. I did not 
take kindly to ministers in those days ; and I thought he 
must be a particular kind of man, by his objecting to the 
term “ May-day.” But, before I went, cousin Holman made 
me promise that I would come back on the Saturday follow- 
ing and spend Sunday with them : when I should see some- 
thing of “ the minister.” 

“ Come on Friday, if you can,” were her last words as 
she stood at the curate-door, shading her eyes from the 
sinking sun with her hand. 

Inside the house sate cousin Phillis, her golden hair, her 
dazzling complexion, Hghting up the corner of the vine- 
shadowed room. She had not risen, when I bade her 
good-bye ; she had looked at me straight, as she said her 
tranquil word^s of farewell. 

I found Mr. Holdsworth down at the line, hard at work 
superintending. As soon as he had a pause, he said, “ Well, 
Manning, what are the new cousins hke ? How do preaching 

II 


Cousin Phillis 

and farming seem to get on together? If the minister 
turns out to be practical as well as reverend, I shall begin to 
respect him.” 

But he hardly attended to my answer, he was so much 
more occupied with directing his workpeople. Indeed, my 
answer did not come very readily; and the most distinct 
part of it was the mention of the invitation that had been 
given me. 

“ Oh ! of course you can go — and on Friday, too, if you 
like ; there is no reason why not this week ; and you’ve 
done a long spell of work this time, old fellow.” 

I thought that I did not want to go on Friday ; but, when 
the day came, I found that I should prefer going to staying 
away ; so I availed myself of Mr. Holdsworth’s permission, 
and went over to Hope Farm some time in the afternoon, a 
little later than my last visit. I found the “ curate ” open, 
to admit the soft September air, so tempered by the warmth 
of the sun that it was warmer out of doors than in, although 
the wooden log lay smouldering in front of a heap of hot 
ashes on the hearth. The vine-leaves over the window had 
a tinge more yellow, their edges were here and there scorched 
and browned; there was no ironing about, and cousin 
Holman sate just outside the house, mending a shirt. 
Phillis was at her knitting indoors : it seemed as if she had 
been at it all the week. The many-speckled fowls were 
pecking about in the farmyard beyond, and the milk-cans 
glittered with brightness, hung out to sweeten. The court 
was so full of flowers that they crept out upon the low- 
covered wall and horse-mount, and were even to be found 
self-sown upon the turf that bordered the path to the back 
of the house. I fancied that my Sunday coat was scented for 
days afterwards by the bushes of sweetbriar and the fraxi- 
nella that perfumed the air. From time to time, cousin 
Holman put her hand into a covered basket at her feet, and 
threw handfuls of com down for the pigeons that cooed and 
fluttered in the air around, in expectation of this treat. 

I had a thorough welcome, as soon as she saw me. 


12 


Cousin Phillis 

“ Now, this is kind — this is right-down friendly,” shaking 
my hand warmly. “ Phillis, your cousin Manning is come ! ” 

“ Call me Paul, will you ? ” said I ; “ they call me so at 
home, and Manning in the office.” 

“ Well ; Paul, then. Your room is all ready for you, 
Paul ; for, as I said to the minister, ‘ I’ll have it ready, 
whether he comes o’ Friday or not.’ And the minister said 
he must go up to the Ash-field, whether you were to come or 
not ; but he would come home betimes, to see if you were 
here. I’ll show you to your room ; and you can wash the 
dust off a bit.” 

After I came down, I think she did not quite know what 
to do with me ; or she might think that I was dull ; or she 
might have work to do in which I hindered her; for she 
called Phillis, and bade her put on her bonnet, and go with 
me to the Ash-field, and find father. So we set off, I in a 
little flutter of a desire to make myself agreeable, but wishing 
that my companion were not quite so tall ; for she was above 
me in height. While I was wondering how to begin our 
conversation, she took up the words. 

” I suppose, cousin Paul, you have to be very busy at 
your work all day long, in general ? ” 

“ Yes, we have to be in the office at half-past eight ; and 
we have an hour for dinner, and then we go at it again till 
eight or nine.” 

“ Then you have not much time for reading ? ” 

“No,” said I, with a sudden consciousness that I did not 
make the most of what leisure I had. 

“No more have I. Father always gets an hour before 
going a-field in the mornings ; but mother does not like me 
to get up so early.” 

“ My mother is always wanting me to get up earlier, 
when I am at home.” 

“ What time do you get up ? ” 

“ Oh! — ah! — sometimes half-past six; not often, though”; 
for I remembered only twice that I had done so during the 
past summer. 


13 


Cousin Phillis 

She turned her head, and looked at me. 

“ Father is up at three ; and so was mother till she was 
ill. I should like to be up at four.” 

Your father up at three ! Why, what has he to do at 
that hour ? ” 

What has he not to do ? He has his private exercise 
in his own room ; he always rings the great bell which 
calls the men to milking ; he rouses up Betty, our maid ; as 
often as not, he gives the horses their feed before the man is 
up — for Jem, who takes care of the horses, is an old man ; 
and father is always loth to disturb him ; he looks at the 
calves, and the shoulders, heels, traces, chaff, and com, before 
the horses go a-field ; he has often to whip-cord the plough- 
whips ; he sees the hogs fed ; he looks into the swill- tubs, 
and writes his orders for what is wanted for food for man 
and beast ; yes, and for fuel, too. And then, if he has a bit 
of time to spare, he comes in and reads with me — but only 
English ; we keep Latin for the evenings, that we may have 
time to enjoy it ; and then he calls in the man to breakfast, 
and cuts the boys’ bread and cheese, and sees their wooden 
bottles filled, and sends them off to their work ; — and by this 
time it is half-past six, and we have our breakfast. There is 
father ! ” she exclaimed, pointing out to me a man in his 
shirt-sleeves, taller by the head than the other two with 
whom he was working. We only saw him through the 
leaves of the ash- trees growing in the hedge, and I thought 
I must be confusing the figures, or mistaken : that man still 
looked like a very powerful labourer, and had none of the pre- 
cise demureness of appearance which I had always imagined 
was the characteristic of a minister. It was the Eeverend 
Ebenezer Holman, however. He gave us a nod as we 
entered the stubble-field ; and I think he would have come 
to meet us, but that he was in the middle of giving some 
directions to his men. I could see that Phillis was built 
more after his type than her mother’s. He, like his 
daughter, was largely made, and of a fair, ruddy compleidon, 
whereas hers was brilliant and dehcate. His hair had been 

14 


Cousin Phillis 

yellow or sandy, but now was grizzled. Yet his grey hairs 
betokened no failure in strength. I never saw a more 
powerful man — deep chest, lean flanks, well-planted head. 
By this time we were nearly up to him ; and he interrupted 
himself and stepped forwards, holding out his hand to me, 
but addressing Phillis. 

Well, my lass, this is cousin Manning, I suppose. 
Wait a minute, young man, and I’ll put on my coat, and 

give you a decorous and formal welcome. But Ned 

Hall, there ought to be a water-furrow across this land : it’s 
a nasty, stiff, clayey, dauby bit of ground, and thou and I 
must fall to, come next Monday — I beg your pardon, cousin 
Manning — and there’s old Jem’s cottage wants a bit of 
thatch; you can do that job to-morrow, while I am busy.” 
Then, suddenly changing the tone of his deep bass voice to 
an odd suggestion of chapels and preachers, he added, “Now 
I will give out the psalm : ‘ Come all harmonious tongues,’ 
to be sung to ‘ Mount Ephraim ’ tune.” 

He lifted his spade in his hand, and began to beat time 
with it ; the two labourers seemed to know both words and 
music, though I did not ; and so did Phillis : her rich voice 
followed her father’s, as he set the tune ; and the men came 
in with more uncertainty, but still harmoniously. Phillis 
looked at me once or twice, with a little surprise at my 
silence ; but I did not know the words. There we five stood, 
bareheaded, excepting Phillis, in the tawny stubble-field, 
from which all the shocks of corn had not yet been carried 
— a dark wood on one side, where the wood-pigeons were 
cooing; blue distance, seen through the ash-trees, on the 
other. Somehow, I think that, if I had known the words, 
and could have sung, my throat would have been choked up 
by the feeling of the unaccustomed scene. 

The hymn was ended, and the men had drawn off, before 
I could stir. I saw the minister beginning to put on his 
coat, and looking at me with friendly inspection in his gaze, 
before I could rouse myself. 

“ I daresay you railway gentlemen don’t wind up the day 

15 


Cousin Phillis 

with singing a psalm together,” said he; *‘but it is not a 
bad practice — not a bad practice. We have had it a bit 
earlier to-day for hospitality’s sake — that’s all.” 

I had nothing particular to say to this, though I was 
thinking a great deal. From time to time, I stole a look at 
my companion. His coat was black, and so was his waist- 
coat; neck-cloth he had none, his strong full throat being 
bare above the snow-white shirt. He wore drab-coloured | 
knee-breeches, grey worsted stockings (I thought I knew the 
maker), and strong-nailed shoes. He carried his hat in his 
hand, as if he liked to feel the coming breeze lifting his 
hair. After a while, I saw that the father took hold of the 
daughter’s hand; and so they, holding each other, went 
along towards home. We had to cross a lane. In it there 
were two little children — one lying prone on the grass in a | 
passion of crying; the other standing stock still, with its 
finger in its mouth, the large tears slowly rolling down its 
cheeks for sympathy. The cause of their distress was 
evident; there was a broken brown pitcher, and a httle 
pool of spilt milk on the road. 

“ Hollo ! hollo ! What’s all this ? ” said the minister. 

“ Why, what have you been about. Tommy ? ” lifting the 
little petticoated lad, who was lying sobbing, with one 
vigorous arm. Tommy looked at him with surprise in his 
round eyes, but no affright — they were evidently old 
acquaintances. 

“ Mammy’s jug ! ” said he at last, beginning to cry 
afresh. 

“ Well ! and will crying piece mammy’s jug, or pick up 
spilt milk ? How did you manage it. Tommy ? ” 

“ He ” (jerking his head at the other) “ and me was 
running races.” 

“ Tommy said he could beat me,” put in the other. 

“ Now, I wonder what will make you two silly lads mind, 
and not run races again, with a pitcher of milk between 
you,” said the minister, as if musing. “ I might flog you, 
and so save mammy the trouble ; for I daresay she’ll do it, 

i6 


Cousin Phillis 

if I don’t.” The fresh burst of whimpering from both 
showed the probability of this. “ Or I might take you to 
the Hope Farm, and give you some more milk; but then 
you’d be running races again, and my milk would follow 
that to the ground, and make another white pool. I think 
the flogging would be best — don’t you ? ” 

“ We would never run races no more,” said the elder of 
the two. 

“ Then you’d not be boys ; you’d be angels.” 

“ No, we shouldn’t.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

They looked into each other’s eyes for an answer to this 
puzzling question. At length, one said, “ Angels is dead folk.” 

“ Come ; we’ll not get too deep into theology. What do 
you think of my lending you a tin can with a lid, to carry 
the milk home in ? That would not break, at any rate ; 
though I would not answer for the milk not spilling, if you 
ran races. That’s it ! ” 

He had dropped his daughter’s hand, and now held out 
each of his to the little fellows. Phillis and I followed, and 
listened to the prattle which the minister’s companions now 
poured out to him, and which he was evidently enjoying. 
At a certain point, there was a sudden burst of the tawny, 
ruddy evening landscape. The minister turned round, and 
quoted a line or two of Latin. 

“ It’s wonderful,” said he, “ how exactly Virgil has hit 
the enduring epithets, nearly two thousand years ago, and 
in Italy ; and yet how it describes to a T what is now lying 
before us in the parish of Heathbridge, county , England.” 

“I daresay it does,” said I, all aglow with shame; for I 
had forgotten the little Latin I ever knew. 

The minister shifted his eyes to Phillis’s face ; it mutely 
gave him back the sympathetic appreciation that I, in my 
ignorance, could not bestow. 

“Oh! this is worse than the catechism,” thought I; 
“ that was only remembering words.” 

“ Phillis, lass, thou must go home with these lads, and 
17 0 


Cousin Phillis 

tell their mother all about the race and the milk. Mammy 
must always know the truth,” now speaking to the children. 
“ And tell her, too, from me that I have got the best birch- 
rod in the parish ; and that, if she ever thinks her children 
want a flogging, she must bring them to me, and, if I think 
they deserve it, I’ll give it them better than she can.” So 
Phillis led the children towards the dairy, somewhere in 
the back-yard ; and I followed the minister in through the 
“ curate ” into the house-place. 

“ Their mother,” said he, “ is a bit of a vixen, and apt to 
punish her children without rhyme or reason. I try to keep 
the parish-rod as well as the parish-bull.” 

He sate down in the three-cornered chair by the fireside, 
and looked around the empty room. 

“ Where’s the missus ? ” said he to himself. But she 
was there in a minute ; it was her regular plan to give him 
his welcome home — by a look, by a touch, nothing more — 
as soon as she could after his return, and he had missed her 
now. Eegardless of my presence, he went over the day’s 
doings to her ; and then, getting up, he said he must go and 
make himself “ reverend,” and that then we would have a 
cup of tea in the parlour. The parlour was a large room, 
with two casemented windows on the other side of the broad 
flagged passage leading from the rector-door to the wide 
staircase, with its shallow, polished oaken steps, on which 
no carpet was ever laid. The parlour-floor was covered in 
the middle by a home-made carpeting of needlework and 
list. One or two quaint family pictures of the Holman 
family hung round the walls ; the fire-grate and irons were 
much ornamented with brass; and on a table against the 
wall between the windows, a great beau-pot of flowers was 
placed upon the folio volumes of Matthew Henry’s Bible. 
It was a compliment to me to use this room, and I tried to 
be grateful for it ; but we never had our meals there after 
that first day, and I was glad of it; for the large house- 
place, living-room, dining-room, whichever you might like 
to call it, was twice as comfortable and cheerful. There 

i8 


Cousin Phillis 

was a rug in front of the great large fireplace, and an oven 
by the grate, and a crook, with the kettle hanging from it, 
over the bright wood-fire ; everything that ought to be black 
and polished in that room was black and polished ; and the 
flags, and window- curtains, and such things as were to be 
white and clean, were just spotless in their purity. Opposite 
to the fireplace, extending the whole length of the room, was 
an oaken shovel-board, with the right incline for a skilful 
player to send the weights into the prescribed space. There 
were baskets of white work about, and a small shelf of books 
hung against the wall — books used for reading, and not for 
propping up a beau-pot of flowers. I took down one or two 
of those books once when I was left alone in the house-place 
on the first evening — Virgil, Caesar, a Greek grammar — oh, 
dear ! ah, me ! and Phillis Holman’s name in each of them ! 
I shut them up, and put them back in their places, and 
walked as far away from the book-shelf as I could. Yes, 
and I gave my cousin Phillis a wide berth, although she 
was sitting at her work quietly enough, and her hair was 
looking more golden, her dark eyelashes longer, her round 
pillar of a throat whiter, than ever. We had done tea, and 
we had returned into the house-place, that the minister 
might smoke his pipe without fear of contaminating the drab 
damask window-curtains of the parlour. He had made him- 
self “ reverend ” by putting on one of the voluminous white 
muslin neckcloths that I had seen cousin Holman ironing, 
that first visit I had paid to the Hope Farm, and by making 
one or two other unimportant changes in his dress. He sate 
looking steadily at me; but whether he saw me or not I 
cannot tell. At the time, I fancied that he did, and was 
gauging me in some unknown fashion in his secret mind. 
Every now and then, he took his pipe out of his mouth, 
knocked out the ashes, and asked me some fresh question. 
As long as these related to my acquirements or my reading, 
I shuffled uneasily and did not know what to answer. By- 
and-by, he got round to the more practical subject of rail- 
roads, and on this I was more at home. I really had taken 

19 


Cousin Phillis 

an interest in my work ; nor would Mr. Holdsworth, indeed, 
have kept me in his employment, if I had not given my mind 
as well as my time to it ; and I was, besides, full of the diffi- 
culties which beset us just then, owing to our not being able 
to find a steady bottom on the Heathbridge moss, over which 
we wished to carry our fine. In the midst of all my eager- 
ness in speaking about this, I could not help being struck 
with the extreme pertinence of his questions. I do not 
mean that he did not show ignorance of many of the details 
of engineering : that was to have been expected ; but on the 
premises he had got hold of he thought clearly and reasoned 
logically. Phillis — so like him as she was both in body and 
mind — kept stopping at her work and looking at me, trying 
to fully understand all that I said. I felt she did ; and per- 
haps it made me take more pains in using clear expressions 
and arranging my words, than I otherwise should. 

“ She shall see I know something worth knowing, though 
it mayn’t be her dead-and-gone languages,” thought I. 

“ I see,” said the minister at length. “ I understand it 
all. You’ve a clear, good head of your ovm, my lad — choose 
how you came by it.” 

“From my father,” said I proudly. “Have you not 
heard of his discovery of a new method of shunting? It 
was in the Gazette. It was patented. I thought every one 
had heard of Manning’s patent winch.” 

“We don’t know who invented the alphabet,” said he, 
half-smiling, and taking up his pipe. 

“ No, I dare say not, sir,” replied I, half-offended ; “ that’s 
so long ago.” 

Puff — puff — puff. 

“ But your father must be a notable man. I heard of 
him once before ; and it is not many a one fifty miles away 
whose fame reaches Heathbridge.” 

“ My father is a notable man, sir. It is not me that says 
so ; it is Mr. Holdsworth, and — and everybody.” 

“ He is right to stand up for his father,” said Cousin 
Holman, as if she were pleading for me. 

20 


Cousin Phillis 

I chafed inwardly, thinking that my father needed no one 
to stand up for him. He was man sufficient for himself. 

“ Yes — he is right,” said the minister placidly. “ Eight, 
because it comes from his heart — right, too, as I believe, in 
point of fact. Else, there is many a young cockerel that will 
stand upon a dunghill and crow about his father, by way of 
making his own plumage to shine. I should Hke to know 
thy father,” he went on, turning straight to me, with a 
kindly, frank look in his eyes. 

But I was vexed, and would take no notice. Presently, 
having finished his pipe, he got up and left the room. 
Phillis put her work hastily down, and went after him. In 
a minute or two she returned, and sate down again. Not 
long after, and before I had quite recovered my good temper, 
he opened the door out of which he had passed, and called 
to me to come to him. I went across a narrow stone pas- 
sage into a strange, many -cornered room, not ten feet in 
area, part study, part counting-house, looking into the farm- 
yard ; with a desk to sit at, a desk to stand at, a spittoon, a 
set of shelves with old divinity books upon them ; another, 
smaller, filled with books on farriery, farming, manures, and 
such subjects, with pieces of paper containing memoranda 
stuck against the whitewashed walls with wafers, nails, pins, 
anything that came readiest to hand ; a box of carpenter’s 
tools on the floor, and some manuscripts in shorthand on the 
desk. 

He turned round, half -laughing. “That foolish girl of 
mine thinks I have vexed you ” — putting his large, powerful 
hand on my shoulder. “ ‘ Nay,’ says I ; ‘ kindly meant is 
kindly taken ’ — is it not so ? ” 

“ It was not quite, sir,” replied I, vanquished by his 
manner ; “ but it shall be in future.” 

“ Come, that’s right. You and I shall be friends. Indeed, 
it’s not many a one I would bring in here. But I was read- 
ing a book this morning, and I could not make it out ; it is a 
book that was left here by mistake one day ; I had subscribed 
to Brother Bobinson’s sermons ; and I was glad to see this 

21 


Cousin Phillis 

instead of them, for, sermons though they be, they’re . . . 
well, never mind ! I took ’em both, and made my old coat do 
a bit longer ; but all’s fish that comes to my net. I have 
fewer books than leisure to read them, and I have a pro- 
digious big appetite. Here it is.” 

It was a volume of stiff mechanics, involving many tech- 
nical terms, and some rather deep mathematics. These last, 
which would have puzzled me, seemed easy enough to him ; 
all that he wanted was the explanation of the technical 
words, which I could easily give. 

While he was looking through the book, to find the places 
where he had been puzzled, my wandering eye caught on 
some of the papers on the wall, and I could not help reading 
one, which has stuck by me ever since. At first, it seemed 
a kind of weekly diary ; but then I saw that the seven days 
were portioned out for special prayers and intercessions : 
Monday for his family, Tuesday for enemies, Wednesday for 
the Independent churches, Thursday for all other churches, 
Friday for persons afflicted, Saturday for his own soul, 
Sunday for all wanderers and sinners, that they might be 
brought home to the fold. 

We were called back into the house-place to have supper. 
A door opening into the kitchen was opened ; and all stood 
up in both rooms, while the minister, tall, large, one hand 
resting on the spread table, the other lifted up, said, in the 
deep voice that would have been loud, had it not been so full 
and rich, but with the peculiar accent or twang that I believe 
is considered devout by some people, “ Whether we eat or 
drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all to the glory 
of God.” 

The supper was an immense meat-pie. We of the house- 
place were helped first ; then the minister hit the handle of 
his buckhorn carving-knife on the table once, and said — 

“ Now or never; ” which meant, did any of us want any 
more ; and, when we had all declined, either by silence or by 
words, he knocked twice with his knife on the table, and 
Betty came in through the open door, and carried off the 


22 


Cousin Phillis 

great dish to the kitchen, where an old man and a young 
one, and a help- girl, were awaiting their meal. 

“Shut the door, if you will,” said the minister to 
Betty. 

“ That’s in honour of you,” said cousin Holman, in a 
tone of satisfaction, as the door was shut. “ When we’ve 
no stranger with us, the minister is so fond of keeping the 
door open, and talking to the men and maids, just as much 
as to Phillis and me.” 

“ It brings us all together, like a household, just before 
we meet as a household in prayer,” said he in explanation. 
“ But to go back to what we were talking about — can you 
tell me of any simple book on dynamics that I could put in 
my pocket, and study a httle at leisure times in the day ? ” 

“ * Leisure times,’ father ? ” said Phillis, with a nearer 
approach to a smile than I had yet seen on her face. 

“Yes; leisure times, daughter. There is many an odd 
minute lost in waiting for other folk ; and, now that railroads 
are coming so near us, it behoves us to know something 
about them.” 

I thought of his own description of his “ prodigious big 
appetite ” for learning. And he had a good appetite of his 
own for the more material victual before him. But I saw, 
or fancied I saw, that he had some rule for himself in the 
matter both of food and drink. 

As soon as supper was done, the household assembled for 
prayer. It was a long impromptu evening prayer ; and it 
would have seemed desultory enough, had I not had a 
ghmpse of the kind of day that preceded it, and so been able 
to find a clue to the thoughts that preceded the disjointed 
utterances ; for he kept there, kneeling down in the centre 
of a circle, his eyes shut, his outstretched hands pressed 
palm to palm — sometimes with a long pause of silence, as if 
waiting to see if there was anything else he wished to “ lay 
before the Lord ” (to use his own expression) — before he 
concluded with the blessing. He prayed for the cattle and 
live creatures, rather to my surprise ; for my attention had 

23 


Cousin Phillis 

begun to wander, till it was recalled by the familiar 
words. 

And here I must not forget to name an odd incident at 
the conclusion of the prayer, and before we had risen from 
our knees (indeed, before Betty was well awake, for she 
made a nightly practice of having a sound nap, her weary 
head lying on her stalwart arms) ; the minister, still kneeling 
in our midst, but with his eyes wide open, and his arms 
dropped by his side, spoke to the elder man, who turned 
round on his knees to attend. “ John, didst see that Daisy 
had her warm mash to-night ? for we must not neglect the 
means, John — two quarts of gruel, a spoonful of ginger, and 
a gill of beer — the poor beast needs it, and I fear it slipped 
out of my mind to tell thee ; and here was I asking a 
blessing and neglecting the means, which is a mockery,” 
said he, dropping his voice. 

Before we went to bed, he told me he should see little or 
nothing more of me during my visit, which was to end on 
Sunday evening, as he always gave up both Saturday and 
Sabbath to his work in the ministry. I remembered that 
the landlord at the inn had told me this, on the day when 
I first inquired about these new relations of mine; and I did 
not dislike the opportunity which I saw would be afforded 
me of becoming more acquainted with cousin Holman and 
Phillis, though I earnestly hoped that the latter would not 
attack me on the subject of the dead languages. 

I went to bed, and dreamed that I was as tall as cousin 
Phillis, and had a sudden and miraculous growth of whisker, 
and a still more miraculous acquaintance with Latin and 
Greek. Alas ! I wakened up still a short, beardless lad, with 
“ tempus fugit ” for my sole remembrance of the little Latin 
I had once learnt. While I was dressing, a bright thought 
came over me; I could question cousin Phillis, instead of 
her questioning me, and so manage to keep the choice of 
the subjects of conversation in my own power. 

Early as it was, every one had breakfasted, and my basin 
of bread and milk was put on the oven-top to await my 

24 


Cousin Phillis 

coming down. Every one was gone about their work. The 
first to come into the house-place was Phillis, with a basket 
of eggs. Faithful to my resolution, I asked — 

“ What are those ? ” 

She looked at me for a moment, and then said gravely — 

“ Potatoes.” 

“ No ! they are not,” said I. “ They are eggs. What 
do you mean by saying they are potatoes ? ” 

“ What did you mean by asking me what they were, 
when they were plain to be seen ? ” retorted she. 

We were both getting a httle angry with each other. 

“ I don’t know. I wanted to begin to talk to you ; and 
I was afraid you would talk to me about books as you did 
yesterday. I have not read much ; and you and the minister 
have read so much.” 

“ I have not,” said she. “ But you are our guest ; and 
mother says I must make it pleasant to you. We won’t 
talk of books. What must we talk about ? ” 

“ I don’t know. How old are you ? ” 

“ Seventeen last May. How old are you ? ” 

“ I am nineteen. Older than you by nearly two years,” 
said I, drawing myself up to my full height. 

“I should not have thought you were above sixteen,” 
she replied, as quietly as if she were not saying the most 
provoking thing she possibly could. Then came a pause. 

“ What are you going to do now ? ” asked I. 

“ I should be dusting the bed-chambers ; but mother 
said I had better stay and make it pleasant to you,” said 
she, a little plaintively, as if dusting rooms was far the 
easier task. 

“ Will you take me to see the live-stock ? I like animals, 
though I don’t know much about them.” 

“ Oh, do you ? I am so glad. I was afraid you would 
not like animals, as you did not like books.” 

I wondered why she said this. I think it was because 
she had begun to fancy all our tastes must be dissimilar. 
We went together all through the farmyard ; we fed the 

^5 


Cousin Phillis 

poultry, she kneeling down with her pinafore full of com 
and meal, and tempting the little timid downy chickens 
upon it, much to the anxiety of the fussy ruffled hen, their 
mother. She called to the pigeons, who fluttered down at 
the sound of her voice. She and I examined the great sleek 
cart-horses ; sympathised in our dislike of pigs ; fed the 
calves ; coaxed the sick cow, Daisy ; and admired the others 
out at pasture ; and came back tired and hungry and dirty 
at dinner-time, having quite forgotten that there were such 
things as dead languages, and consequently capital friends. 


PAET II 

Cousin Holman gave me the weekly county-newspaper to 
read aloud to her, while she mended stockings out of a high 
piled-up basket, Phillis helping her mother. I read and 
read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of 
all manner of other things ; of the bright colour of Phillis’s 
hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head ; of the 
silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double 
tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs ; of 
the variety of inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made 
while I read, to show her sympathy, wonder, or horror at 
the newspaper intelligence. The tranquil monotony of that 
hour made me feel as if I had lived for ever, and should live 
for ever, droning out paragraphs in that warm sunny room, 
with my two quiet hearers, and the curled-up pussy-cat 
sleeping on the hearthrug, and the clock on the house-stairs 
perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments. By- 
and-by, Betty the servant came to the door into the kitchen, 
and made a sign to Phillis, who put her half-mended stocking 
down, and went away to the kitchen without a word. Look- 
ing at cousin Holman a minute or two afterwards, I saw 
that she had dropped her chin upon her breast, and had 

26 


Cousin Phillis 

fallen fast asleep. I put the newspaper down, and was 
nearly following her example, when a waft of air from some 
unseen source slightly opened the door of communication 
with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened ; and 
I saw part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling 
apples with quick dexterity of finger, but with repeated 
turnings of her head towards some book lying on the dresser 
by her. I softly rose, and as softly went into the kitchen, 
and looked over her shoulder ; before she was aware of my 
neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was in a language 
unknown to me, and the running title was “ L’Inferno.” 
Just as I was making out the relationship of this word to 
“ infernal,” she started and turned round, and, as if continuing 
her thought as she spoke, she sighed out — 

“ Oh ! it is so difficult ! Can you help me ? ” putting 
her finger below a line. 

“ Me ! I ! Not I ! I don’t even know what language 
it is in ! ” 

“ Don’t you see it is Dante ? ” she replied, almost 
petulantly ; she did so want help. 

“ Italian, then ? ” said I dubiously ; for I was not quite 
sure. 

“ Yes. And I do so want to make it out. Father can 
help me a little, for he knows Latin ; but then he has so 
little time.” 

“ You have not much, I should think, if you have often 
to try and do two things at once, as you are doing now.” 

“ Oh ! that’s nothing ! Father bought a heap of old 
books cheap. And I knew something about Dante before ; 
and I have always liked Virgil so much. Paring apples is 
nothing, if I could only make out this old Italian. I wish 
you knew it.” 

“ I wish I did,” said I, moved by her impetuosity of tone. 
“ If, now, only Mr. Holds worth were here ! he can speak 
Italian like anything, I believe.” 

“ Who is Mr. Holdsworth ? ” said Phillis, looking up. 

“Oh, he’s our head-engineer. He’s a regular first-rate 
27 


Cousin Phillis 

fellow I He can do anything ; ” my hero-worship and my 
pride in my chief all coming into play. Besides,' if I was 
not clever and hook-learned myself, it was something to 
belong to some one who was. 

“ How is it that he speaks Italian ? ” asked Phillis. 

“ He had to make a railway through Piedmont, which is 
in Italy, I believe ; and he had to talk to all the workmen in 
Italian ; and I have heard him say that, for nearly two years, 
he had only Italian books to read in the queer outlandish 
places he was in.” 

“Oh, dear ! ” said Phillis ; “I wish ” — and then she 
stopped. I was not quite sure whether to say the next 
thing that came into my mind ; but I said it. 

“ Could I ask him anything about your book, or your 
difficulties ? ” 

She was silent for a minute or so, and then she made 
reply— 

“ No ! I think not. Thank you very much, though. 
I can generally puzzle a thing out in time. And then, 
perhaps, I remember it better than if some one had helped 
me. I’ll put it away now, and you must move off, for I’ve 
got to make the paste for the pies ; we always have a cold 
dinner on Sabbaths.” 

“ But I may stay and help you, mayn’t I ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; not that you can help at all, but I like to 
have you with me.” 

I was both flattered and annoyed at this straightforward 
avowal. I was pleased that she liked me ; but I was young 
coxcomb enough to have wished to play the lover, and I was 
quite wise enough to perceive that, if she had any idea of the 
kind in her head, she would never have spoken out so frankly. 
I comforted myself immediately, however, by finding out the 
grapes were sour. A great, tall girl in a pinafore, half-a-head 
taller than I was, reading books that I had never heard of, 
and talking about them too, as of far more interest than any 
mere personal subjects — that was the last day on which 
I ever thought of my dear cousin Phillis as the possible 

28 


Cousin Phillis 

mistress of my heart and life. But we were all the greater 
friends for this idea being utterly put away and buried out of 
sight. 

Late in the evening the minister came home from Hornby. 
He had been calling on the different members of his flock ; 
and unsatisfactory work it had proved to him, it seemed, 
from the fragments that dropped out of his thoughts into 
his talk. 

“ I don’t see the men ; they are all at their business^ 
their shops, or their warehouses ; they ought to be there. 
I have no fault to find with them ; only, if a pastor’s teaching 
or words of admonition are good for anything, they are 
needed by the men as much as by the women.” 

“ Cannot you go and see them in their places of business, 
and remind them of their Christian privileges and duties, 
minister ? ” asked cousin Holman, who evidently thought that 
her husband’s words could never be out of place. 

“ No ! ” said he, shaking his head. “ I judge them by 
myself. If there are clouds in the sky, and I am getting in 
the hay just ready for loading, and rain sure to come in the 
night, I should look ill upon Brother Eobinson if he came 
into the field to speak about serious things.” 

“ But, at any rate, father, you do good to the women, 
and perhaps they repeat what you have said to them to their 
husbands and children ? ” 

“ It is to be hoped they do, for I cannot reach the men 
directly; but the women are apt to tarry before coming to 
me, to put on ribbons and gauds ; as if they could hear the 
message I bear to them best in their smart clothes. Mrs. 
Dobson to-day — Phillis, I am thankful thou dost not care for 
the vanities of dress ! ” 

P hilli s reddened a little as she said, in a low humble 
voice — 

“ But I do, father, I’m afraid. I often wish I could wear 
pretty-coloured ribbons round my throat, like the squire’s 
daughters.” 

“It’s but natural, minister!” said his wife; “I’m not 
29 


Cousin Phillis 

above liking a silk gown better than a cotton one 
myself ! ” 

“ The love of dress is a temptation and a snare,” said he, 
gravely. “ The true adornment is a meek and quiet spirit. 
And, wife,” said he, as a sudden thought crossed his mind, 
“ in that matter I, too, have sinned. I wanted to ask you, 
could we not sleep in the grey room, instead of our own ? ” 

“ Sleep in the grey room ? — change our room at this time 
o’ day ! ” cousin Holman asked, in dismay. 

“ Yes,” said he. “ It would save me from a daily tempta- 
tion to anger. Look at my chin ! ” he continued ; “ I cut it 
this morning — I cut it on Wednesday, when I was shaving ; 
I do not know how many times I have cut it of late, and all 
from impatience at seeing Timothy Cooper at his work in the 
yard.” 

“ He’s a downright lazy tyke ! ” said cousin Holman. 
“ He’s not worth his wage. There’s but httle he can do ; and 
what he can do, he does badly.” 

“ True,” said the minister. “ But he is but, so to speak, 
a half-wit ; and yet he has got a wife and children.” 

“ More shame for him ! ” 

“ But that is past change. And, if I turn him off, no one 
else would take him on. Yet I cannot help watching him of 
a morning as he goes sauntering about his work in the yard ; 
and I watch, and I watch, till the old Adam rises strong 
within me at his lazy ways ; and some day, I am afraid, I 
shall go down and send him about his business — let alone the 
way in which he makes me cut myself while I am shaving — 
and then his wife and children will starve. I wish we could 
move to the grey room.” 

I do not remember much more of my first visit to the 
Hope Farm. We went to chapel in Heathbridge, slowly and 
decorously walking along the lanes, ruddy and tawny with 
the colouring of the coming autumn. The minister walked 
a little before us, his hands behind his back, his head bent 
down, thinking about the discourse, to be delivered to his 
peojde,^ cousin Holman said; and we spoke low and quietly, 

30 


Cousin Phillis 

in order not to interrupt his thoughts. But I could not help 
noticing the respectful greetings which he received from both 
rich and poor as we went along : greetings which he acknow- 
ledged with a kindly wave of his hand, but with no words of 
reply. As we drew near the town, I could see some of the 
young fellows we met casting admiring looks on Phillis ; and 
that made me look too. She had on a white gown, and a 
short black silk cloak, according to the fashion of the day. A 
straw bonnet, with brown ribbon strings ; that was all. But 
what her dress wanted in colour, her sweet bonny face had. 
The walk made her cheeks bloom hke the rose; the very 
whites of her eyes had a blue tinge in them, and her dark 
eyelashes brought out the depth of the blue eyes themselves. 
Her yellow hair was put away as straight as its natural 
curliness would allow. If she did not perceive the admira- 
tion she excited, I am sure cousin Holman did; for she 
looked as fierce and as proud as ever her quiet face could 
look, guarding her treasure, and yet glad to perceive that 
others could see that it was a treasure. This afternoon I had 
to return to Eltham, to be ready for the next day’s work. I 
found out afterwards that the minister and his family were 
all “ exercised in spirit,” as to whether they did well in asking 
me to repeat my visits at the Hope Farm, seeing that of 
necessity I must return to Eltham on the Sabbath-day. 
However, they did go on asking me, and I went on visiting 
them, whenever my other engagements permitted me ; Mr. 
Holdsworth being in this case, as in all, a kind and indul- 
gent friend. Nor did my new acquaintances oust him from 
my strong regard and admiration. I had room in my heart 
for all, I am happy to say ; and, as far as I can remember, I 
kept praising each to the other in a manner which, if I had 
been an older man, living more amongst people of the world, 
I should have thought unwise, as well as a little ridiculous. 
It was unwise, certainly, as it was almost sure to cause 
disappointment, if ever they did become acquainted; and 
perhaps it was ridiculous, though I do not think we any of 
us thought it so at the time. The minister used to listen to 

31 


Cousin Phillis 

my accounts of Mr. Holdsworth’s many accomplishments 
and various adventures in travel with the truest interest, and 
most kindly good faith ; and Mr. Holdsworth, in return, liked 
to hear about my visits to the farm, and description of my 
cousins’ life there — liked it, I mean, as much as he liked 
anything that was merely narrative, without leading to 
action. 

So I went to the farm certainly, on an average, once a 
month during that autumn ; the course of life there was so 
peaceful and quiet, that I can only remember one small 
event, and that was one that I think I took more notice of 
than any one else : Phillis left off wearing the pinafores that 
had always been so obnoxious to me : I do not know why 
they were banished, but on one of my visits I found them 
replaced by pretty hnen aprons in the morning, and a black 
silk one in the afternoon. And the blue cotton gown became 
a brown stuff one as winter drew on ; this sounds like some 
book I once read, in which a migration from the blue bed to 
the brown was spoken of as a great family event. 

Towards Christmas, my dear father came to see me, and 
to consult Mr. Holdsworth about the improvement which 
has since been known as “ Manning’s driving-wheel.” Mr. 
Holdsworth, as I think I have before said, had a very great 
regard for my father, who had been employed in the same 
great machine-shop in which Mr. Holdsworth had served his 
apprenticeship; and he and my father had many mutual 
jokes about one of these gentlemen-apprentices who used to 
set about his smith’s work in white wash-leather gloves, for 
fear of spoihng his hands. Mr. Holdsworth often spoke to 
me about my father as having the same kind of genius for 
mechanical invention as that of George Stephenson ; and my 
father had come over now to consult him about several 
improvements, as well as an offer of partnership. It was a 
great pleasure to me to see the mutual regard of these two 
men : Mr. Holdsworth, young, handsome, keen, well-dressed, 
an object of admiration to all the youth of Eltham ; my 
father, in his decent but unfashionable Sunday clothes, his 
f 32 


Cousin Phillis 

plain, sensible face full of hard lines, the marks of toil and 
thought, — his hands blackened, beyond the power of soap 
and water, by years of labour in the foundry ; speaking a 
strong Northern dialect, while Mr. Holdsworth had a long, 
soft drawl in his voice, as many of the Southerners have, 
and was reckoned in Eltham to give himself airs. 

Although most of my father’s leisure-time was occupied 
with conversations about the business I have mentioned, he 
felt that he ought not to leave Eltham without going to pay 
his respects to the relations who had been so kind to his son. 
So he and I ran up on an engine along the incomplete line 
as far as Heathbridge, and went, by invitation, to spend a 
day at the farm. 

It was odd and yet pleasant to me to perceive how these 
two men, each having led up to this point such totally 
dissimilar lives, seemed to come together by instinct, after 
one quiet straight look into each other’s faces. My father 
was a thin, wiry man of five foot seven ; the minister was a 
broad-shouldered, fresh-coloured man of six foot one ; they 
were neither of them great talkers in general — perhaps the 
minister the most so — but they spoke much to each other. 
My father went into the fields with the minister ; I think I 
see him now, with his hands behind his back, listening 
intently to all explanations of tillage, and the different pro- 
cesses of farming ; occasionally taking, up an implement, as 
if unconsciously, and examining it with a critical eye, and 
now and then asking a question, which I could see was 
considered as pertinent by his companion. Then we returned 
to look at the cattle, housed and bedded in expectation of 
the snowstorm, hanging black on the western horizon, and 
my father learned the points of a cow with as much attention 
as if he meant to turn farmer. He had his little book that 
he used for mechanical memoranda and measurements in 
his pocket, and he took it out to write down “ straight back,” 
“ small muzzle,” “ deep barrel,” and I know not what else, 
under the head “ cow.” He was very critical on a turnip- 
cutting machine, the clumsiness of which first incited him to 

33 D 


Cousin Phillis 

talk ; and, when we went into the house, he sat thinking and 
quiet for a bit, while Phillis and her mother made the last 
preparations for tea, with a little unheeded apology from 
cousin Holman, because we were not sitting in the best 
parlour, which she thought might be chilly on so cold a 
night. I wanted nothing better than the blazing, crackling 
fire that sent a glow over all the house-place, and warmed 
the snowy flags under our feet, till they seemed to have more 
heat than the crimson rug, right in front of the fire. After 
tea, as Phillis and I were talking together very happily, I 
heard an irrepressible exclamation from cousin Holman — 

“ Whatever is the man about ! ” 

And, on looking round, I saw my father taking a straight 
burning stick out of the fire ; and, after waiting for a minute, 
and examining the charred end, to see if it was fitted for his 
purpose, he went to the hard- wood dresser, scoured to the 
last pitch of whiteness and cleanliness, and began drawing 
with the stick; the best substitute for chalk or charcoal 
within his reach, for his pocket-book pencil was not strong 
or bold enough for his purpose. When he had done, he 
began to explain his new model of a turnip- cutting machine 
to the minister, who had been watching him in silence all the 
time. Cousin Holman had, in the meantime, taken a duster 
out of a drawer, and, under pretence of being as much in- 
terested as her husband in the drawing, was secretly trying 
on an outside mark how easily it would come off, and whether 
it would leave her dresser as white as before. Then Phillis 
was sent for the book of dynamics, about which I had been 
consulted during my first visit ; and my father had to explain 
many difficulties, which he did in language as clear as his 
mind, making drawings with his stick wherever they were 
needed as illustrations ; the minister sitting with his massive 
head resting on his hands, his elbows on the table, almost 
unconscious of Phillis, leaning over and listening greedily, 
with her hand on his shoulder, sucking in information, like 
her father’s own daughter. I was rather sorry for cousin 
Holman; I had been so once or twice before; for do what 

34 


Cousin Phillis 

she would, she was completely unable even to understand the 
pleasure her husband and daughter took in intellectual pur- 
suits, much less to care in the least herself for the pursuits 
themselves, and was thus unavoidably thrown out of some of 
their interests. I had once or twice thought she was a little 
jealous of her own child, as a fitter companion for her hus- 
band than she was herself ; and I fancied the minister him- 
self was aware of this feeling, for I had noticed an occasional 
sudden change of subject, and a tenderness of appeal in his 
voice as he spoke to her, which always made her look con- 
tented and peaceful again. I do not think that Phillis ever 
perceived these little shadows ; in the first place, she had 
such complete reverence for her parents that she listened to 
them both as if they had been St. Peter and St. Paul ; and, 
besides, she was always too much engrossed with any matter 
in hand to think about other people’s manners and looks. 

This night I could see, though she did not, how much she 
was winning on my father. She asked a few questions 
which showed that she had followed his explanations up to 
that point; possibly, too, her unusual beauty might have 
something to do with his favourable impression of her ; but 
he made no scruple of expressing his admiration of her to 
her father and mother in her absence from the room ; and 
from that evening I date a project of his which came out to 
me, a day or two afterwards, as we sate in my Httle three- 
cornered room in Eltham. 

Paul,” he began, “ I never thought to be a rich man ; 
but I think it’s coming upon me; Some folk are making a 
deal of my new machine ” (calling it by its technical name) ; 
“ and Ellison, of the Borough Green Works, has gone so far 
as to ask me to be his partner.” 

“ Mr. Ellison, the justice — who lives in King Street ? 
why, he drives his carriage ! ” said I, doubting, yet exultant. 

“ Ay, lad, John Ellison. But that’s no sign that I shall 
drive my carriage. Though I should like to save thy mother 
walking, for she’s not so young as she was. But that’s a 
long way off, anyhow. I reckon I should start with a third 

35 


Cousin Phillis 

profit. It might be seven hundred, or it might be more. I 
should like to have the power to work out some fancies o’ 
mine. I care for that much more than for th’ brass. And 
Elhson has no lads ; and by nature the business would come 
to thee in course o’ time. Ellison’s lassies are but bits o’ 
things, and are not like to come by husbands just yet ; and, 
when they do, maybe they’ll not be in the mechanical line. 
It will be an opening for thee, lad, . if thou art steady. 
Thou’rt not great shakes, I know, in th’ inventing line ; but 
many a one gets on better without having fancies for some- 
thing he does not see and never has seen. I’m right down 
glad to see that mother’s cousins are such uncommon folk 
for sense and goodness. I have taken the minister to my 
heart like a brother, and she is a womanly, quiet sort of a 
body. And I’ll tell you frank, Paul, it will be a happy day 
for me, if ever you can come and tell me that Phillis Holman 
is like to be my daughter. I think, if that lass had not a 
penny, she would be the making of a man ; and she’ll have 
yon house and lands, and you may be her match yet in 
fortune, if all goes well.” 

I was growing as red as fire ; I did not know what to 
say, and yet I wanted to say something; but the idea of 
having a wife of my own at some future day, though it had 
often floated about in my own head, sounded so strange, 
when it was thus first spoken about by my father. He saw 
my confusion, and half-smiling said — 

“ Well, lad, what dost say to the old father’s plans ? 
Thou art but young, to be sure ; but when I was thy age, I 
would ha’ given my right hand, if I might ha’ thought of the 

chance of wedding the lass I cared for ” 

“ My mother ? ” asked I, a httle struck by the change of 
his tone of voice. 

“ No ! not thy mother. Thy mother is a very good 
woman — none better. No ! the lass I cared for at nineteen 
ne’er knew how I loved her, and a year or two after and she 
was dead, and ne’er knew. I think she would ha’ been glad 
to ha’ known it, poor Molly ; but I had to leave the place 

36 


I Cousin Phillis 

where we lived, for to try to earn my bread— and I meant to 
I come back — but, before ever I did, she was dead and gone : 
I ha’ never gone there since. But, if you fancy Phillis 
Holman, and can get her to fancy you, my lad, it shall go 
j different with you, Paul, to what it did with your father.” 

I took counsel with myself very rapidly, and I came to a 
clear conclusion. 

I “ Father,” said I, “ if I fancied Phillis ever so much, she 
would never fancy me. I like her as much as I could like 
a sister ; and she likes me as if I were her brother — her 
younger brother.” 

I could see my father’s countenance fall a little. 

I “ You see she’s so clever — she’s more like a man than a 
woman — she knows Latin and Greek.” 

“ She’d forget ’em, if she’d a houseful of children,” was 
, my father’s comment on this. 

I “ But she knows many a thing besides, and is wise as 
! well as learned : she has been so much with her father. She 
would never think much of me, and I should like my wife to 
think a deal of her husband.” 

“ It is not just book-learning, or the want of it, as makes 
, a wife think much or little of her husband,” replied my 
I father, evidently unwilling to give up a project which had 
taken deep root in his mind. “ It’s a something — I don’t 
rightly know how to call it — if he’s manly, and sensible, and 
straightforward ; and I reckon you’re that, my boy.” 

** I don’t think I should like to have a wife taller than I 
am, father,” said I, smiling ; he smiled too, but not heartily. 

“ Well,” said he, after a pause. “ It’s but a few days 
I’ve been thinking of it ; but I’d got as fond of my notion as 
if it had been a new engine as I’d been planning .out. Here’s 
our Paul, thinks I to myself, a good sensible breed o’ lad, as 
has never vexed or troubled his mother or me ; with a good 
business opening out before him ; age nineteen ; not so bad- 
looking, though perhaps not to call handsome ; and here’s his 
cousin, not too near a cousin, but just nice, as one may say ; 
aged seventeen ; good and true, and well brought up to work 

37 


Cousin Phillis 

with her hands as well as her head; a scholar — but that 
can’t be helped, and is more her misfortune than her fault, 
seeing she is the only child of a scholar — and as I said afore, 
once she’s a wife and a mother, she’ll forget it all. I’ll be 
bound — with a good fortune in land and house, when it shall 
please the Lord to take her parents to himself; with eyes 
like poor Molly’s for beauty, a colour that comes and goes on 

a milk white skin, and as pretty a mouth ” 

“ Why, Mr. Manning, what fair lady are you describing? ” 
asked Mr. Holds worth, who had come quickly and suddenly 
upon our tUe-a-tete, and had caught my father’s last words as 
he entered the room. 

Both my father and I felt rather abashed ; it was such an 
odd subject for us to be talking about ; but my father, like a 
straightforward, simple man as he was, spoke out the truth. 

“ I’ve been telling Paul of Ellison’s offer, and saying how 

good an opening it made for him ” 

“ I wish I’d as good,” said Mr. Holdsworth. “ But has 
the business a ‘ pretty mouth ’ ? ” 

“ You’re always so full of your joking, Mr. Holdsworth,” 
said my father. “ I was going to say that if he and his 
cousin Phillis Holman liked to make it up between them, I 
would put no spoke in the wheel.” 

“ Phillis Holman ! ” said Mr. Holdsworth. “ Is she the 
daughter of the minister-farmer out at Heathbridge ? Have 
I been helping on the course of true love, by letting you go 
there so often ? I knew nothing of it.” 

“ There is nothing to know,” said I, more annoyed than 
I chose to show. “ There is no more true love in the case 
than may be between the first brother and sister you may 
choose to meet. I have been telling father she would never 
think of me; she’s a great deal taller and cleverer ; and I’d 
rather be taller and more learned than my wife when I 
have one.” 

“And it is she, then, that has the pretty mouth your 
father spoke about ? I should think that would be an anti- 
dote to the cleverness and learning. But I ought to apologise 

38 


Cousin Phillis 

for breaking in upon your last night ; I came upon business 
to your father.” 

And then he and my father began to talk about many 
things that had no interest for me just then, and I began to 
go over again my conversation with my father. The more I 
thought about it, the more I felt that I had spoken truly 
about my feelings towards Phillis Holman. I loved her 
dearly as a sister, but I could never fancy her as my wife. 
Still less could I think of her ever — yes, condescending, that 
is the word — condescending to marry me. I was roused 
from a reverie on what I should like my possible wife to be, 
by hearing my father’s warm praise of the minister, as a 
most unusual character; how they had got back from the 
diameter of driving-wheels to the subject of the Holmans, I 
could never tell ; but I saw that my father’s weighty praises 
were exciting some curiosity in Mr. Holdsworth’s mind; 
indeed, he said, almost in a voice of reproach — 

“ Why, Paul, you never told me what kind of a fellow 
this minister-cousin of yours was ? ” 

“ I don’t know that I found out, sir,” said I. “ But if I 
had, I don’t think you’d have listened to me, as you have 
done to my father.” 

“No! most likely not, old fellow,” replied Mr. Holds- 
worth, laughing. And, again and afresh, I saw what a hand- 
some pleasant clear face his was ; and, though this evening 
I had been a bit put out with him — through his sudden 
coming, and his having heard my father’s open-hearted con- 
fidence — my hero resumed all his empire over me by his 
bright merry laugh. 

And, if he had not resumed his old place that night, he 
would have done so the next day : when, after my father’s 
departure, Mr. Holdsworth spoke about him with such just 
respect for his character, such ungrudging admiration of his 
great mechanical genius, that I was compelled to say, almost 
unawares — 

“ Thank you, sir. I am very much obliged to you.” 

“Oh, you’re not at all. I am only speaking the truth. 

39 


Cousin Phillis 

Here’s a Birmingham workman, self-educated, one may say 
— having never associated with stimulating minds, or had 
what advantages travel and contact with the world may be 
supposed to afford — working out his own thoughts into steel 
and iron, making a scientific name for himself — a fortune, 
if it pleases him to work for money and keeping his single- 
ness of heart, his perfect simplicity of manner; it puts me 
out of patience to think of my expensive schooling, my 
travels hither and thither, my heaps of scientific books — and 
I have done nothing to speak of 1 But it’s evidently good 
blood ; there’s that Mr. Holman, that cousin of yours, made 
of the same stuff.” 

“ But he’s only cousin because he married my mother’s 
second cousin,” said I. 

“ That knocks a pretty theory on the head, and twice 
over, too. I should like to make Holman’s acquaintance.” 

“ I am sure they would be so glad to see you at Hope 
Farm,” said I eagerly. “ In fact, they’ve asked me to bring 
you several times ; only I thought you would find it dull.” 

“ Not at all. I can’t go yet though, even if you do get 

me an invitation ; for the Company want me to 

go to the Valley, and look over the ground a bit for 

them, to see if it would do for a branch line; it’s a job 
which may take me away for some time ; but I shall be 
backwards and forwards, and you’re quite up to doing what 
is needed in my absence ; the only work that may be beyond 
you is keeping old Jevons from drinking.” 

He went on giving me directions about the management 
of the men employed on the line ; and no more was said then, 
or for several months, about his going to Hope Farm. He 

went off into Valley, a dark overshadowed dale, where 

the sun seemed to set behind the hills before four o’clock on 
midsummer afternoon. 

Perhaps it was this that brought on the attack of low 
fever, which he had soon after the beginning of the new 
year ; he was very ill for many weeks, almost many months ; 
p, mamed sister — his only relation, I think — came dowi^ 

40 


Cousin Phillis 

from London to nurse him, and I went over to him when 
I could, to see him, and give him “ masculine news ”, as he 
called it; reports of the progress of the line, which, I am 
glad to say, I was able to carry on in his absence, in the 
slow gradual way which suited the company best, while trade 
was in a languid state and money dear in the market. Of 
course, with this occupation for my scanty leisure, I did not 
often go over to Hope Farm. Whenever I did go, I met 
with a thorough welcome ; and many inquiries were made as 
to Holdsworth’s illness, and the progress of his recovery. 

At length, in June I think it was, he was sufficiently 
recovered to come back to his lodgings at Eltham, and 
resume part at least of his work. His sister, Mrs. Eobinson, 
had been obliged to leave him some weeks before, owing to 
some epidemic amongst her own children. As long as I had 
seen Mr. Holds worth in the rooms at the little inn at Hens- 
leydale, where I had been accustomed to look upon him as 
an invalid, I had not been aware of the visible shake his 
fever had given to his health. But, once back in the old 
lodgings, where I had always seen him so buoyant, eloquent, 
decided, and vigorous in former days, my spirits sank at the 
change in one whom I had always regarded with a strong 
feeling of admiring affection. He sank into silence and 
despondency after the least exertion ; he seemed as if he 
could not make up his mind to any action, or else, as if, when 
it was made up, he lacked strength to carry out his purpose. 
Of course, it was but the natural state of slow convalescence, 
after so sharp an illness ; but, at the time, I did not know 
this, and perhaps I represented his state as more serious 
than it was, to my kind relations at Hope Farm ; who, in 
their grave, simple, eager way, immediately thought of the 
only help they could give. 

“ Bring him out here,” said the minister. “ Our air here 
is good, to a proverb ; the June days are fine ; he may loiter 
away his time in the hay-field, and the sweet smells will be 
a balm in themselves — better than physic.” 

“And,” said cousin Holman, scarcely waiting for her 

41 


Cousin Phillis 

husband to finish his sentence, “ tell him there is new milk 
and fresh eggs to be had for the asking ; it’s lucky Daisy has 
just calved, for her milk is always as good as other cows’ 
cream; and there is the plaid-room, with the morning-sun 
all streaming in.” 

Phillis said nothing, but looked as much interested in the 
project as any one. I took it up myself. I wanted them to 
see him and him to know them. I proposed it to him, when I 
got home. He was too languid, after the day’s fatigue, to be 
willing to make the little exertion of going amongst strangers ; 
and disappointed me by almost declining to accept the invita- 
tion I brought. The next morning it was different ; he 
apologised for his ungraciousness of the night before; and 
told me that he would get all things in train, so as to be ready 
to go out with me to Hope Farm on the following Saturday. 

“ For you must go with me. Manning,” said he ; “I used 
to be as impudent a fellow as need be, and rather hked going 
amongst strangers and making my way ; but since my illness 
I am almost hke a girl, and turn hot and cold with shyness ; 
as they do, I fancy.” 

So it was fixed. We were to go out to Hope Farm on 
Saturday afternoon ; and it was also understood that, if the 
air and the life suited Mr. Holdsworth, he was to remain 
there for a week or ten days, doing what work he could at 
that end of the line, while I took his place at Eltham to the 
best of my ability. I grew a little nervous, as the time drew 
near, and wondered how the brilliant Holdsworth would 
agree with the quiet quaint family of the minister ; how they 
would like him and many of his half-foreign ways. I tried 
to prepare him, by telling him, from time to time, little things 
about the goings-on at Hope Farm. 

“ Manning,” said he, “I see you don’t think I am half 
good enough for your friends. Out with it, man ! ” 

“ No,” I replied boldly. “ I think you are good ; but I 
don’t know if you are quite of their kind of goodness.” 

“And you’ve found out already that there is greater 
chance of disagreement between two ‘ kinds of goodness ’, 

42 


Cousin Phillis 

each having its own idea of right, than between a given 
goodness and a moderate degree of naughtiness — which last 
often arises from an indifference to right ? ” 

“ I don’t know. I think you’re talking metaphysics ; and 
I am sure that is bad for you.” 

“ ‘ When a man talks to you in a way that you don’t 
understand about a thing which he does not understand, 
them’s metaphysics.’ You remember the clown’s definition, 
don’t you. Manning ? ” 

“ No, I don’t,” said I. “ But what I do understand is, 
that you must go to bed, and tell me at what time we must 
start to-morrow ; that I may go to Hepworth, and get those 
letters written we were talking about this morning.” 

“ Wait till to-morrow, and let us see what the day is like,” 
he answered, with such languid indecision as showed me he 
was over-fatigued. So I went my way. 

The morrow was blue and sunny and beautiful ; the 
very perfection of an early summer’s day. Mr. Holdsworth 
was all impatience to be off into the country ; morning had 
brought back his freshness and strength, and consequent 
eagerness to be going. I was afraid we were going to my 
cousin’s farm rather too early, before they would expect us ; 
but what could I do with such a restless vehement man as 
Holdsworth was that morning ? We came down upon the 
Hope Farm, before the dew was off the grass on the shady 
side of the lane ; the great house-dog was loose, basking in 
the sun, near the closed side door. I was surprised at this 
door being shut, for all summer long it was open from 
morning to night ; but it was only on latch. I opened it ; 
Kovcr watching me with half-suspicious, half-trustful eyes. 
The room was empty. 

“ I don’t know where they can be,” said I. “ But come 
in and sit down, while I go and look for them ! You must be 
tired.” 

“ Not I. This sweet balmy air is like a thousand tonics. 
Besides, this room is hot, and smells of those pungent wood- 
ashes. What are we to do ? ” 


43 


Cousin Phillis 

“ Go round to the kitchen. Betty will tell us where they 
are.” 

So we went round into the farm-yard, Eover accompanying 
us out of a grave sense of duty. Betty was washing out her 
milk-pans, in the cold bubbling spring water that constantly 
trickled in and out of a stone trough. In such weather as 
this, most of her kitchen- work was done out of doors. 

“ Eh, dear ! ” said she, “ the minister and missus is away 
at Hornby ! They ne’er thought of your coming so betimes 1 
The missus had some errands to do; and she thought as 
she’d walk with the minister and be back by dinner-time.” 

“ Did not they expect us to dinner ? ” said I. 

“ Well, they did, and they did not, as I may say. Missus 
said to me, the cold lamb would do well enough, if you did 
not come ; and, if you did, I was to put on a chicken and 
some bacon to boil ; and I’ll go do it now, for it is hard to 
boil bacon enough.” 

“ And is Phillis gone, too ? ” Mr. Holds worth was 
making friends with Eover. 

“ No ! She’s just somewhere about. I reckon you’ll find 
her in the kitchen-garden, getting peas.” 

“ Let us go there,” said Holds worth, suddenly leaving off 
his play with the dog. 

So I led the way into the kitchen-garden. It was in the 
first promise of a summer profuse in vegetables and fruits. 
Perhaps it was not so much cared for as other parts of the 
property; but it was more attended to than most kitchen- 
gardens belonging to farm-houses. There were borders of 
flowers along each side of the gravel-walks ; and there was 
an old sheltering wall on the north side, covered with toler- 
ably choice fruit-trees ; there was a slope down to the 
fish-pond at the end, where there were great strawberry- 
beds ; and raspberry-bushes and rose-bushes grew wherever 
there was a space ; it seemed a chance which had been 
planted. Long rows of peas stretched at right angles from 
the main walk ; and I saw Phillis stooping down among 
them, before she saw us. As soon as she heard our 

44 


Cousin Phillis 

cranching steps on the gravel, she stood up, and, shading 
her eyes from the sun, recognised us. She was quite still 
for a moment, and then came slowly towards us, blushing a 
little, from evident shyness. I had never seen Phillis shy 
before. 

“This is Mr. Holdsworth, Phillis,” said I, as soon as I 
had shaken hands with her. She glanced up at him, and 
then looked down, more flushed than ever at his grand 
formality of taking his hat off and bowing ; such manners 
had never been seen at Hope Farm before. 

“ Father and mother are out. They will be so sorry ; you 
did not write, Paul, as you said you would.” 

“ It was my fault,” said Holdsworth, understanding what 
she meant, as well as if she had put it more fully into words. 
“ I have not yet given up all the privileges of an invalid; one 
of which is indecision. Last night, when your cousin asked 
me at what time we were to start, I really could not make 
up my mind.” 

PhilHs seemed as if she could not make up her mind as 
to what to do with us. I tried to help her — 

“ Have you finished getting peas ? ” taking hold of the 
half-filled basket she was unconsciously holding in her hand; 
“ or may we stay and help you ? ” 

“ If you would. But perhaps it will tire you, sir ? ” added 
she, speaking now to Holdsworth. 

“ Not a bit,” said he. “ It will carry me back twenty 
years in my hfe, when I used to gather peas in my grand- 
father’s garden. I suppose I may eat a few, as I go along ? ” 

“ Certainly, sir. But, if you went to the strawberry-beds, 
you would find some strawberries ripe ; and Paul can show 
you where they are.” 

“ I am afraid you distrust me. I can assure you, I know 
the exact fulness at which peas should be gathered. I take 
great care not to pluck them when they are unripe. I will 
not be turned off, as unfit for my work.” 

This was* a style of half-joking talk that Phillis was not 
accustomed to. She looked for a moment as if she would 

45 


Cousin Phillis 

have liked to defend herself from the playful charge of 
distrust made against her ; but she ended by not saying a 
word. We all plucked our peas in busy silence for the next 
five minutes. Then Holdsworth lifted himself up from 
between the rows, and said, a little wearily — 

“ I am afraid I must strike work. I am not as strong 
as I fancied myself.” 

Phillis was full of penitence immediately. He did, 
indeed, look pale ; and she blamed herself for having allowed 
him to help her. 

“It was very thoughtless of me. I did not know — I 
thought, perhaps, you really liked it. I ought to have 
offered you something to eat, sir ! Oh, Paul, we have 
gathered quite enough; how stupid I was to forget that 
Mr. Holdsworth had been ill!” And in a blushing hurry 
she led the way towards the house. We went in, and she 
moved a heavy-cushioned chair forwards, into which Holds- 
worth was only too glad to sink. Then, with deft and quiet 
speed, she brought in a little tray — wine, water, cake, home- 
made bread, and newly-churned butter. She stood by in 
some anxiety till, after bite and sup, the colour returned to 
Mr. Holdsworth’s face, and he would fain have made us 
some laughing apologies for the fright he had given us. But 
then Phillis drew back from her innocent show of care and 
interest, and relapsed into the cold shyness habitual to her 
when she was first thrown into the company of strangers. 
She brought out the last week’s county-paper (which Mr. 
Holdsworth had read five days ago), and then quietly 
withdrew ; and then he subsided into languor, leaning back 
and shutting his eyes, as if he would go to sleep. I stole 
into the kitchen after Phillis ; but she had made the round 
of the corner of the house outside, and I found her sitting 
on the horse-mount, with her basket of peas, and a basin 
into which she was shelling them. Eover lay at her feet, 
snapping now and then at the flies. I went to her, and 
tried to help her ; but somehow the sweet, crisp young peas 
found their way more frequently into my mouth than into 

46 


Cousin Phillis 

the basket, while we talked together in a low tone, fearful 
of being overheard through the open casements of the house- 
place, in which Holdsworth was resting. 

“ Don’t you think him handsome ? ” asked I. 

“ Perhaps — yes — I have hardly 4ooked at him,” she 
replied. “ But is not he very like a foreigner ? ” 

“ Yes, he cuts his hair foreign fashion,” said I. 

“ I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman.” 

“ I don’t think he thinks about it. He says he began 
that way when he was in Italy, because everybody wore it 
so, and it is natural to keep it on in England.” 

“Not if he began it in Italy, because everybody there 
wore it so. Everybody here wears it differently.” 

I was a little offended with Phillis’s logical fault-finding 
with my friend ; and I determined to change the subject. 

“ When is your mother coming home ? ” 

“ I should think she might come any time now ; but she 
had to go and see Mrs. Morton, who was ill ; and she might 
be kept, and not be home till dinner. Don’t you think you 
ought to go and see how Mr. Holdsworth is going on, Paul ? 
He may be faint again.” 

I went at her bidding; but there was no need for it. 
Mr. Holdsworth was up, standing by the window, his hands 
in his pockets; he had evidently been watching us. He 
turned away as I entered. 

“ So that is the girl I found your good father planning 
for your wife, Paul, that evening when I interrupted you 1 
Are you of the same coy mind still ? It did not look like it 
a minute ago.” 

“ Phillis and I understand each other,” I replied sturdily. 
“ We are like brother and sister. She would not have me 
as a husband, if there was not another man in the world ; 
and it would take a deal to make me think of her — as my 
father wishes ” (somehow I did not hke to say “ as a wife ”) ; 
“ but we love each other dearly.” 

“ Well, I am rather surprised at it— not at your loving 
each other in a brother-and-sister kind of way — but at your 

47 


Cousin Phillis 

finding it so impossible to fall in love with such a beautiful 
woman.” 

Woman ! beautiful woman ! I had thought of Phillis as 
a comely, but awkward, girl ; and I could not banish the 
pinafore from my mind’s eye when 1 tried to picture her to 
myself. Now I turned, as Mr. Holds worth had done, to 
look at her again out of the window : she had just finished 
her task, and was standing up, her back to us, holding the 
basket and the basin in it, high in air, out of Eover’s reach, 
who was giving vent to his delight at the probabihty of a 
change of place by glad leaps and barks, and snatches at 
what he imagined to be a withheld prize. At length she 
grew tired of their mutual play, and, with a feint of striking 
him, and a “ Down, Eover ! do hush ! ” she looked towards 
the window where we were standing, as if to reassure herself 
that no one had been disturbed by# the noise ; and seeing us, 
she coloured all over, and hurried away, with Eover still 
curving in sinuous hues about her as she walked. 

“I should like to have sketched her,” said Mr. Holds- 
worth, as he turned away. He went back to his chair, and 
rested in silence for a minute or two. Then he was up 
again. 

“ I would give a good deal for a book,” said he. “ It 
would keep me quiet.” He began to look round ; there were 
a few volumes at one end of the shovel-board. 

“ Fifth volume of Matthew Henry’s Commentary,” said 
he, reading their titles aloud. “ Housewife’s Complete 
Manual ; Berridge on Prayer ; L’Infemo — Dante ! ” in great 
surprise. “ Why, who reads this ? ” 

“ I told you Phillis read it. Don’t you remember ? She 
knows Latin and Greek, too.” 

“ To be sure ! I remember ! But somehow I never put 
two and two together. That quiet girl, full of household- 
work, is the wonderful scholar, then, that put you to rout 
with her questions, when you first began to come here ! To 
be sure, ‘ Cousin Phillis ! ’ What’s here — a paper with the 
hard obsolete words written out. I wonder what sort of a 

48 


Cousin Phillis 

dictionary she has got. Baretti won’t tell her all these 
words. Stay ! I have got a pencil here. I’ll write down the 
most accepted meanings, and save her a Httle trouble.” 

So he took her book and the paper back to the little 
round table, and employed himself in writing explanations 
and definitions of the words which had troubled her. I was 
not sure if he was not taking a liberty ; it did not quite 
please me, and yet I did not know why. He had only just 
done, and replaced the paper in the book, and put the latter 
back in its place, when I heard the sound of wheels stopping 
in the lane ; and, looking out, I saw cousin Holman getting 
out of a neighbour’s gig, making her little curtsey of acknow- 
ledgment, and then coming towards the house. I went out 
to meet her. 

“ Oh, Paul ! ” said she, “ I am so sorry I was kept ; and 
then Thomas Dobson said, if I would wait a quarter of an 

hour, he would But where’s your friend Mr. Holds- 

worth ? I hope he is come ? ” 

Just then he came out and, with his pleasant cordial 
manner, took her hand, and thanked her for asking him to 
come out here to get strong. 

“ I’m sure I am very glad to see you, sir. It was the 
minister’s thought. I took it into my head you would be 
dull in our quiet house, for Paul says you’ve been such a 
great traveller ; but the minister said that dulness would 
perhaps suit you while you were but ailing, and that I was 
to ask Paul to be here as much as he could. I hope you’ll 
find yourself happy with us, I’m sure, sir. Has Phillis 
given you something to eat and drink, I wonder ? there’s a 
deal in eating a little often, if one has to get strong after an 
illness.” And then she began to question him as to the 
details of his indisposition, in her simple, motherly way. He 
seemed at once to understand her, and to enter into friendly 
relations with her. It was not quite the same in the evening, 
when the minister came home. Men have always a little 
natural antipathy to get over when they first meet as 
strangers. But, in this case, each was disposed to make an 

49 E 


Cousin Phillis 

effort to like the other ; only, each was to each a specimen of 
an unknown class. I had to leave the Hope Farm on Sunday 
afternoon, as I had Mr. Holdsworth’s work as well as my 
own to look to in Eltham ; and I was not at all sure how 
things would go on during the week that Holdsworth was to 
remain on his visit ; I had been once or twice in hot water 
already, at the near clash of opinions between the minister 
and my much-vaunted friend. On the Wednesday I received 
a short note from Holdsworth ; he was going to stay on, and 
return with me on the following Sunday, and he wanted me 
to send him a certain list of books, his theodolite, and other 
surveying instruments, all of which could easily be conveyed 
down the line to Heathbridge. I went to his lodgings and 
picked out the books. Italian, Latin, trigonometry ; a pretty 
considerable parcel they made, besides the implements. I 
began to be curious as to the general progress of affairs at 
Hope Farm ; but I could not go over till the Saturday. At 
Heathbridge I found Holdsworth, come to meet me. He 
was looking quite a different man to what I had left him : 
embrowned ; sparkles in his eyes, so languid before. I told 
him how much stronger he looked. 

“ Yes I ” said he. “ I am fidging-fain to be at work 
again. Last week, I dreaded the thoughts of my employ- 
ment ; now I am full of desire to begin. This week in the 
country has done wonders for me.” 

“ You have enjoyed yourself, then ? ” 

“ Oh ! it has been perfect in its way. Such a thorough 
country-life ! and yet removed from the dulness which I 
always used to fancy accompanied country-life, by the 
extraordinary intelligence of the minister. I have fallen 
into calling him ‘ the minister,’ like every one else.” 

“ You get on with him, then ? ” said I. “ I was a little 
afraid.” 

“ I was on the verge of displeasing him once or twice, I 
fear, with random assertions and exaggerated expressions, 
such as one always uses with other people, and thinks 
nothing of ; but I tried to check myself when I saw how 

SO 


Cousin Phillis 

it shocked the good man ; and really it is very wholesome 
exercise, this trying to make one’s words represent one’s 
thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.” 

“ Then you are quite friends now ? ” I asked. 

“ Yes, thoroughly ; at any rate as far as I go. I never 
met a man with such a desire for knowledge. In informa- 
tion, as far as it can he gained from books, he far exceeds 

me on most subjects ; but then I have travelled and seen 

Were not you surprised at the list of things I sent for ? ” 

“ Yes ; I thought it did not promise much rest.” 

“ Oh, some of the books were for the minister, and some 
for his daughter. (I call her ‘ Phillis ’ to myself, but I use 
a round-about way of speaking of her to others. I don’t 
hke to seem familiar, and yet ‘ Miss Holman ’ is a term I 
have never heard used.) ” 

“ I thought the Italian books were for her.” 

“ Yes ! Fancy her trying at Dante for her first book in 
Itahan ! I had a capital novel by Manzoni, ‘ I Promessi 
Sposij just the thing for a beginner ! and, if she must still 
puzzle out Dante, my dictionary is far better than hers.” 

“ Then she found out you had written those definitions 
on her list of words ? ” 

“ Oh ! yes ” — with a smile of amusement and pleasure. 
He was going to tell me what had taken place, but checked 
himself. 

“But I don’t think the minister wiU like your having 
given her a novel to read ? ” 

“ Pooh ! What can be more harmless ? Why make a 
bugbear of a word ! It is as pretty and innocent a tale as 
can be met with. You don’t suppose they take Virgil for 
gospel ? ” 

By this time we were at the farm. I think Phillis gave 
me a warmer welcome than usual, and cousin Holman was 
kindness itself. Yet somehow I felt as if I had lost my 
place, and that Holds worth had taken it. He knew all the 
ways of the house ; he was full of little filial attentions to 
cousin Holman; he treated Phillis with the affectionate 

SI 


Cousin Phillis 

condescension of an elder brother ; not a bit more ; not in 
any way different. He questioned me about the progress 
of affairs in Eltham with eager interest. 

“ Ah ! ” said cousin Holman, “ you’ll be spending a 
different kind of time next week to what you have done this ! 
I can see how busy you’ll make yourself ! But, if you don’t 
take care, you’ll be ill again, and have to come back to our 
quiet ways of going on.” 

“ Do you suppose I shall need to be ill to wish to come 
back here ? ” he answered warmly. “ I am only afraid you 
have treated me so kindly that I shall always be turning up 
on your hands.” 

“ That’s right,” she replied. “ Only don’t go and make 
yourself ill by over- work. I hope you’ll go on with a cup 
of new milk every morning, for I am sure that is the best 
medicine; and put a teaspoonful of rum in it, if you hke; 
many a one speaks highly of that, only we had no rum in 
the house.” 

I brought with me an atmosphere of active life which 
I think he had begun to miss ; and it was natural that he 
should seek my company, after his week of retirement. 
Once, I saw Phillis looking at us, as we talked together, with 
a kind of wistful curiosity ; but, as soon as she caught my 
eye, she turned away, blushing deeply. 

That evening I had a little talk with the minister. I 
strolled along the Hornby road to meet him ; for Holdsworth 
was giving Phillis an Italian lesson, and cousin Holman had 
fallen asleep over her' work. 

Somehow, and not unwillingly on my part, our talk fell 
on the friend whom I had introduced to the Hope Farm. 

“ Yes ! I like him ! ” said the minister, weighing his 
words a httle as he spoke. “I like him. I hope I am 
justified in doing it ; but he takes hold of me, as it were, and 
I have almost been afraid lest he carries me away, in spite 
of my judgment.” 

“ He is a good fellow ; indeed he is,” said I. “ My father 
thinks well of him ; and I have seen a deal of him. I would 

52 


Cousin Phillis 

not have had him come here, if I did not know that you would 
approve of him.” 

“ Yes ” (once more hesitating), “ I like him, and I think 
he is an upright man ; there is a want of seriousness in his 
talk at times, but, at the same time, it is wonderful to listen 
to him ! He makes Horace and Virgil living, instead of 
dead, by the stories he tells me of his sojourn in the very 

countries where they lived, and where to this day, he says 

But it is like dram-drinking. I listen to him, till I forget my 
duties and am carried off my feet. Last Sabbath-evening, he 
led us away into talk on profane subjects ill-befitting the day.” 

By this time we were at the house, and our conversation 
stopped. But, before the day was out, I saw the unconscious 
hold that my friend had got over all the family. And no 
wonder : he had seen so much and done so much, as com- 
pared to them, and he told about it all so easily and naturally, 
and yet as I never heard any one else do ; and his ready 
pencil was out in an instant to draw on scraps of paper 
all sorts of illustrations — modes of drawing up water in 
Northern Italy, wine-carts, buffaloes, stone-pines, I know 
not what. After we had all looked at these drawings, Phillis 
gathered them together, and took them. 

It is many years since I have seen thee, Edward Holds- 
worth, but thou wast a delightful fellow ! Ay, and a good 
one too : though much sorrow was caused by thee I 


PAET III 

Just after this, I went home for a week’s holiday. Every- 
thing was prospering there ; my father’s new partnership 
gave evident satisfaction to both parties. There was no 
display of increased wealth in our modest household ; but 
my mother had a few extra comforts provided for her by 
her husband. I made acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. 

53 


Cousin Phillis 

Ellison, and first saw pretty Margaret Ellison, who is now 
my wife. When I returned to Eltham, I found that a step 
was decided upon which had been in contemplation for some 
time : that Holdsworth and I should remove our quarters to 
Hornby; our daily presence, and as much of our time as 
possible, being required for the completion of the line at 
that end. 

Of course this led to greater facility of intercourse with 
the Hope Farm people. We could easily walk out there, 
after our day’s work was done, and spend a balmy evening 
hour or two, and yet return before the summer’s twilight 
had quite faded away. Many a time, indeed, we would fain 
have stayed longer — the open air, the fresh and pleasant 
country, made so agreeable a contrast to the close, hot town 
lodgings which I shared with Mr. Holdsworth ; but early 
hours, both at eve and morn, were an imperative necessity 
with the minister, and he made no scruple at turning either 
or both of us out of the house directly after evening prayer, 
or “ exercise,” as he called it. The remembrance of many 
a happy day, and of several little scenes, comes back upon 
me as I think of that summer. They rise like pictures to 
my memory, and in this way I can date their succession ; 
for I know that corn-harvest must have come after hay- 
making, apple-gathering after corn-harvest. 

The removal to Hornby took up some time, during which 
we had neither of us any leisure to go out to the Hope Farm. 
Mr. Holdsworth had been out there once, during my absence 
at home. One sultry evening, when work was done, he 
proposed our walking out and paying the Holmans a visit. 
It so happened that I had omitted to write my usual weekly 
letter home in our press of business, and I wished to finish 
that before going out. Then he said that he would go, and 
that I could follow him, if I liked. This I did in about an 
hour ; the weather was so oppressive, I remember, that I 
took off my coat as I walked, and hung it over my arm. All 
the doors and windows at the farm were open, when I 
arrived there, and every tiny leaf on the trees was still. The 

54 


Cousin Phillis 

silence of the place was profound ; at first I thought it was 
entirely deserted ; but, just as I drew near the door, I heard 
a weak, sweet voice begin to sing ; it was cousin Holman, 
all by herself in the house-place, piping up a hymn, as she 
knitted away in the clouded light. She gave me a kindly 
welcome, and poured out all the small domestic news of 
the fortnight past upon me; and, in return, I told her 
about my own people and my visit at home. 

“ Where were the rest ? ” at length I asked. 

Betty and the men were in the field helping with the last 
load of hay, for the minister said there would be rain before 
the morning. Yes, and the minister himself, and Phillis, and 
Mr. Holdsworth, were all there helping. She thought that 
she herself could have done something ; but perhaps she was 
the least fit for hay-making of any one ; and somebody must 
stay at home and take care of the house, there were so many 
tramps about; if I had not had something to do with the 
railroad, she would have called them navvies. I asked her if 
she minded being left alone, as I should like to go and help ; 
and, having her full and glad permission to leave her alone, I 
went off, following her directions : through the farm-yard, past 
the cattle-pond, into the ash-field, beyond into the higher field, 
with two holly- bushes in the middle. I arrived there : there 
was Betty with all the farming men, and a cleared field, and 
a heavily-laden cart ; one man at the top of the great pile, 
ready to catch the fragrant hay which the others threw up 
to him with their pitchforks ; a little heap of cast-off clothes 
in a comer of the field (for the heat, even at seven o’clock, 
was insufferable), a few cans and baskets, and Bover lying 
by them, panting, and keeping watch. Plenty of loud, hearty, 
cheerful talking ; but no minister, no Phillis, no Mr. Holds- 
worth. Betty saw me first, and, understanding who it was 
that I was in search of, she came towards me. 

“ They’re out yonder — a-gait wi’ them things o* Measter 
Holdsworth’s.” 

So “out yonder’’ I went; out on to a broad upland 
common, full of red sand-banks, and sweeps and hollows ; 

55 


Cousin Phillis 

bordered by dark firs, purple in the coming shadows, but 
near at hand all ablaze with flowering gorse, or, as we call 
it in the south, furze-bushes, which, seen against the belt of 
distant trees, appeared brilliantly golden. On this heath, a 
little way from the field-gate, I saw the three. I counted 
their heads, joined together in an eager group over Holds- 
worth’s theodolite. He was teaching the minister the practical 
art of surveying and taking a level. I was wanted to assist, 
and was quickly set to work to hold the chain. Phillis was 
as intent as her father ; she had hardly time to greet me, so 
desirous was she to hear some answer to her father’s question. 

So we went on, the dark clouds still gathering, for per- 
haps five minutes after my arrival. Then came the blinding 
lightning and the rumble and quick-following rattling peal 
of thunder, right over our heads. It came sooner than I 
expected, sooner than they had looked for : the rain delayed 
not ; it came pouring down ; and what were we to do for 
shelter ? Phillis had nothing on but her indoor things — no 
bonnet, no shawl. Quick as the darting lightning around us, 
Holdsworth took off his coat and wrapped it round her neck 
and shoulders, and, almost without a word, hurried us all 
into such poor shelter as one of the over-hanging sand-banks 
could give. There we were, cowered down, close together, 
Phillia innermost, almost too tightly-packed to free her arms 
enough to divest herself of the coat, which she, in her turn, 
tried to put hghtly over Holdsworth’s shoulders. In doing 
so, she touched his shirt. 

“ Oh, how wet you are ! ” she cried, in pitying dismay ; 
“and you’ve hardly got over your fever! Oh, Mr. Holds- 
worth, I am so sorry 1 ” He turned his head a little, smiling 
at her. 

“If I do catch cold, it is all my fault for having de- 
luded you into staying out here ! ” But she only murmured 
again, “ I am so sorry.” 

The minister spoke now. “It is a regular down-pour. 
Please God that the hay is saved 1 But there is no likelihood 
of its ceasing, and I had better go home at once, and send 

S6 


Cousin Phillis 

you all some wraps ; umbrellas will not be safe with yonder 
thunder and lightning.” 

Both Holdsworth and I offered to go instead of him ; but 
he was resolved, although perhaps it would have been wiser 
if Holdsworth, wet as he already was, had kept himself in 
exercise. As he moved off, Phillis crept out, and could see 
on to the storm-swept heath. Part of Holdsworth’s apparatus 
still remained exposed to all the rain. Before we could have 
any warning, she had rushed out of the shelter and collected 
the various things, and brought them back in triumph to 
where we crouched. Holdsworth had stood up, uncertain 
whether to go to her assistance or not. She came running 
back, her long lovely hair floating and dripping, her eyes 
glad and bright, and her colour freshened to a glow of health 
by the exercise and the rain. 

“ Now, Miss Holman, that’s what I call wilful,” said 
Holdsworth, as she gave them to him. “ No, I won’t thank 
you ” (his looks were thanking her all the time). “ My little 
bit of dampness annoyed you, because you thought I had 
got wet in your service; so you were determined to make 
me as uncomfortable as you were yourself. It was an un- 
christian piece of revenge ! ” 

His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have 
l?een palpable enough to any one accustomed to the world ; 
but Phillis was not, and it distressed or rather bewildered 
her. “ Unchristian ” had to her a very serious meaning ; it 
was not a word to be used lightly ; and, though she did not 
exactly understand what wrong it was that she was accused 
of doing, she was evidently desirous to throw off the impu- 
tation. At first, her earnestness to disclaim unkind motives 
amused Holdsworth ; while his light continuance of the joke 
perplexed her still more ; but at last he said something gravely, 
and in too low a tone for me to hear, which made her all at 
once become silent, and called out her blushes. After a 
while, the minister came back, a moving mass of shawls, 
cloaks, and umbrellas. Phillis kept very close to her father’s 
side on our return to the farm. She appeared to me to be 

57 


Cousin Phillis 

shrinking away from Holdsworth, while he had not the 
slightest variation in his manner from what it usually was in 
his graver moods ; kind, protecting, and thoughtful towards 
her. Of course, there was a great commotion about our wet 
clothes ; but I name the little events of that evening now, 
because I wondered at the time what he had said in that low 
voice to silence Phillis so effectually, and because, in thinking 
of their intercourse by the light of future events, that evening 
stands out with some prominence. 

I have said that, after our removal to Hornby, our com- 
munications with the farm became almost of daily occurrence. 
Cousin Holman and I were the two who had least to do with 
this intimacy. After Mr. Holdsworth regained his health, he 
too often talked above her head in intellectual matters, and 
too often in his light bantering tone for her to feel quite at 
her ease with him. I really believe that he adopted this latter 
tone in speaking to her because he did not know what to talk 
about to a purely motherly woman, whose intellect had never 
been cultivated, and whose loving heart was entirely occupied 
with her husband, her child, her household affairs, and, 
perhaps, a little with the concerns of the members of her 
husband’s congregation, because they, in a way, belonged to 
her husband. I had noticed before that she had fleeting 
shadows of jealousy even of Phillis, when her daughter and 
her husband appeared to have strong interests and sympathies 
in things which were quite beyond her comprehension. I 
had noticed it in my first acquaintance with them, I say, and 
had admired the delicate tact which made the minister, on 
such occasions, bring the conversation back to such subjects 
as those on which his wife, with her practical experience of 
everyday life, was an authority ; while Phillis, devoted to her 
father, unconsciously followed his lead, totally unaware, in 
her filial reverence, of his motive for doing so. 

To return to Holdsworth. The minister had at more 
than one time spoken of him to me with slight distrust, 
principally occasioned by the suspicion that his careless 
words were not always those of soberness and truth. But 

58 


Cousin Phillis 

it was more as a protest against the fascination which the 
younger man evidently exercised over the elder one — more, 
as it were, to strengthen himself against yielding to this 
fascination — that the minister spoke out to me about this 
failing of Holdsworth’s, as it appeared to him. In return, 
Holdsworth was subdued by the minister’s uprightness and 
goodness, and delighted with his clear intellect — his strong 
healthy craving after further knowledge. I never met two 
men who took more thorough pleasure and relish in each 
other’s society. To Phillis his relation continued that of an 
elder brother : he directed her studies into new paths ; he 
patiently drew out the expression of many of her thoughts, 
and perplexities, and unformed theories, scarcely ever now 
falling into ^e vein of banter which she was so slow to 
understand 

One day — harvest-time — he had been drawing on a loose 
piece of paper— sketching ears of com, sketching carts drawn 
by bullocks and laden with grapes — all the time talking with 
Philhs and me, cousin Holman putting in her not pertinent 
remarks, when suddenly he said to Phillis — 

“ Keep your head still ; I see a sketch ! I have often 
tried to draw your head from memory, and failed; but I 
think I can do it now. If I succeed, I will give it to your 
mother. You would like a portrait of your daughter as 
Ceres, would you not, ma’am ? ” 

“ I should like a picture of her ; yes, very much, thank 
you, Mr. Holdsworth ; but if you put that straw in her hair ” 
(he was holding some wheat ears above her passive head, 
looking at the effect with an artistic eye), “ you’ll ruffle her 
hair. PhiUis, my dear, if you’re to have your picture taken, 
go upstairs, and bmsh your hair smooth.” 

“ Not on any account. I beg your pardon ; but I want 
hair loosely-flowing.” 

He began to draw, looking intently at Phillis; I could 
see this stare of his discomposed her — her colour came and 
went, her breath quickened with the consciousness of his 
regard ; at last, when he said, “ Please look at me for a 

59 


Cousin Phillis 

minute or two, I want to get in the eyes,” she looked up at 
him, quivered, and suddenly got up and left the room. He 
did not say a word, but went on with some other part of the 
drawing; his silence was unnatural, and his dark cheek 
blanched a little. Cousin Holman looked up from her work, 
and put her spectacles down. 

“ What’s the matter ? Where is she gone ? ” 

Holdsworth never uttered a word, but went on drawing. 
I felt obhged to say something ; it was stupid enough, but 
stupidity was better than silence just then. 

“ I’ll go and call her,” said I. So I went into the hall, 
and to the bottom of the stairs ; but just as I was going to 
call Phillis, she came down swiftly with her bonnet on, and 
saying, “ I’m going to father in the five-acre,” passed out by 
the open “ rector,” right in front of the house-place windows, 
and out at the little white side-gate. She had been seen by 
her mother and Holdsworth as she passed ; so there was no 
need for explanation ; only, cousin Holman and I had a long 
discussion as to whether she could have found the room too 
hot, or what had occasioned her sudden departure. Holds- 
worth was very quiet during all the rest of that day; nor 
did he resume the portrait-taking by his own desire, only, at 
my cousin Holman’s request, the next time that he came ; 
and then he ‘said he should not require any more formal 
sittings for only such a slight sketch as he felt himself 
capable of making. Phillis was just the same as ever, the 
next time I saw her after her abrupt passing me in the hall. 
She never gave any explanation of her rush out of the room. 

So all things went on, at least as far as my observation 
reached at the time, or memory can recall now, till the great 
apple-gathering of the year. The nights were frosty, the 
mornings and evenings were misty, but at mid-day all was 
sxmny and bright ; and it was one mid-day that, both of us 
being on the line near Heathbridge, and knowing that they 
were gathering apples at the farm, we resolved to spend the 
men’s dinner-hour in going over there. We found the great 
clothes-baskets full of apples, scenting the house and stopping 

6o 


Cousin Phillis 

up the way, and an universal air of merry contentment with 
this the final produce of the year. The yellow leaves hung 
on the trees, ready to flutter down at the slightest puff of air ; 
the great bushes of Michaelmas daisies in the kitchen -garden 
were making their last show of flowers. We must needs 
taste the fruit off the different trees, and pass our judgment 
as to their flavour; and we went away with our pockets 
stuffed with those that we liked best. As we had passed to 
the orchard, Holdsworth had admired and spoken about 
some flower which he saw; it so happened he had never 
seen this old-fashioned kind since the days of his boyhood. 
I do not know whether he had thought anything more about 
this chance speech of his, but I know I had not — when 
Phillis, who had been missing just at the last moment of our 
hurried visit, re-appeared with a little nosegay of this same 
flower, which she was tying up with a blade of grass. She 
offered it to Holdsworth as he stood with her father on the 
point of departure. I saw their faces. I saw for the first 
time an unmistakable look of love in his black eyes ; it was 
more than gratitude for the little attention ; it was tender 
and beseeching — passionate. She shrank from it in con- 
fusion, her glance fell on me; and, partly to hide her 
emotion, partly out of real kindness at what might appear 
ungracious neglect of an older friend, she flew off to gather 
me a few late-blooming China roses. But it was the first 
time she had ever done anything of the kind for me. 

We had to walk fast to be back on the fine before the 
men’s return ; so we spoke but little to each other, and of 
course the afternoon was too much occupied for us to have 
any talk. In the evening we went back to our joint lodgings 
in Hornby. There, on the table, lay a letter for Holdsworth, 
which had been forwarded to him from Bltham. As our tea 
was ready, and I had had nothing to eat since morning, I 
fell to directly, without paying much attention to my com- 
panion as he opened and read his letter. He was very silent 
for a few minutes ; at length he said — 

“ Old fellow ! I’m going to leave you.” 

6i 


Cousin Phillis 

“ Leave me ! ” said I. “ How ? When ? ” 

“ This letter ought to have come to hand sooner. It is 
from Greathed the engineer ” (Greathed was well known in 
those days ; he is dead now, and his name half-forgotten) ; 
“ he wants to see me about some business ; in fact, I may as 
well tell you, Paul, this letter contains a very advantageous 
proposal for me to go out to Canada, and superintend the 
making of a line there.” 

I was in utter dismay. 

“ But what will our Company say to that ? ” 

“ Oh, Greathed has the superintendence of this line, you 
know, and he is going to be engineer-in-chief to this Canadian 
line : many of the shareholders in this Company are going in 
for the other; so I fancy they will make no difficulty in 
following Greathed’s lead. He says he has a young man 
ready to put in my place.” 

“ I hate him,” said I. 

“ Thank you,” said Holdsworth, laughing. 

“ But you must not,” he resumed ; “for this is a very 
good thing for me ; and, of course, if no one can be found to 
take my inferior work, I can’t be spared to take the superior. 
I only wish I had received this letter a day sooner. Every 
hour is of consequence, for Greathed says they are threaten- 
ing a rival hne. Do you know, Paul, I almost fancy I must 
go up to-night ? I can take an engine back to Eltham, and 
catch the night train. I should not like Greathed to think 
me lukewarm.” 

“ But you’ll come back ? ” I asked, distressed at the 
thought of this sudden parting. 

“ Oh, yes ! At least I hope so. They may want me to 
go out by the next steamer ; that will be on Saturday.” He 
began to eat and drink standing, but 1 think he was quite 
unconscious of the nature of either his food or his drink. 

“ I will go to-night. Activity and readiness go a long 
way in our profession. Eemember that, my boy ! I hope 
I shall come back ; but, if I don’t, be sure and recollect all 
the words of wisdom that have fallen from my lips. Now, 

62 


Cousin Phillis 

where’s the portmanteau? If I can gain half-an-hour for 
a gathering up of my things in Eltham, so much the better. 
I’m clear of debt, anyhow ; and what I owe for my lodgings 
you can pay for me out of my quarter’s salary, due 
November 4th.” 

“ Then you don’t think you will come back ? ” I said 
despondingly. 

“ I will come back some time, never fear,” said he kindly. 
“ I may be back in a couple of days, having been found in- 
competent for the Canadian work ; or I may not be wanted 
to go out so soon as I now anticipate. Anyhow, you don’t 
suppose I am going to forget you, Paul — this work out there 
ought not to take me above two years, and, perhaps, after 
that, we may be employed together again.” 

Perhaps ! I had very httle hope. The same kind of 
happy days never return. However, I did all I could in 
helping him : clothes, papers, books, instruments ; how we 
pushed and struggled — how I stuffed ! All was done in a 
much shorter time than we had calculated upon, when I 
had run down to the sheds to order the engine. I was 
going to drive him to Eltham. We sat ready for a summons. 
Holdsworth took up the little nosegay he had brought away 
from the Hope Farm, and had laid on the mantelpiece on 
first coming into the room. He smelt at it, and caressed it 
with his lips. 

“ What grieves me is that I did not know — that I have 
not said good-bye to — to them.” 

He spoke in a grave tone, the shadow of the coming 
separation falling upon him at last. 

“ I will tell them,” said I. “ I am sure they will be very 
sorry.” Then we were silent. 

“ I never liked any family so much.” 

“ I knew you would like them.” 

“ How one’s thoughts change— this morning I was full 
of a hope, Paul.” He paused, and then he said — 

“ You put that sketch in carefully ? ” 

“ That outline of a head ? ” asked I. But I knew he 
63 


Cousin Phillis 

meant an abortive sketch of Phillis, which had not been 
successful enough for him to complete it with shading or 
colouring. 

“ Yes. What a sweet innocent face it is ! and yet so — 
Oh, dear!” 

He sighed and got up, his hands in his pockets, to walk 
up and down the room in evident disturbance of mind. He 
suddenly stopped opposite to me. 

“ You’ll tell them how it all was. Be sure and tell the 
good minister that I was so sorry not to wish him good-bye, 
and to thank him and his wife for all their kindness. As 
for Phillis — please God, in two years I’ll be back and tell 
her myself all in my heart.” 

“ You love Phillis, then ? ” said I. 

“ Love her ! — Yes, that I do. Who could help it, seeing 
her as I have done ? Her character as unusual and rare as 
her beauty! God bless her! God keep her in her high 
tranquillity, her pure innocence ! — Two years ! It is a long 
time. But she lives in such seclusion, almost like the sleep- 
ing beauty, Paul, — ” (he was smiling now, though a minute 
before I had thought him on the verge of tears) “ — but I 
shall come back like a prince from Canada, and waken her 
to my love. I can’t help hoping that it won’t be difficult ; 
eh, Paul?” 

This touch of coxcombry displeased me a little, and I 
made no answer. He went on, half apologetically — 

“You see, the salary they offer me is large ; and, besides 
that, this experience will give me a name which will entitle 
me to expect a still larger in any future undertaking.” 

“ That won’t influence Phillis.” 

“ No ! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of 
her father and mother.” 

I made no answer. 

“ You give me your best wishes, Paul,” said he, almost 
pleading. “ You would like me for a cousin ? ” 

I heard the scream and whistle of the engine, ready down 
at the sheds. 


64 


Cousin Phillis 

“ Ay, that I should,” I replied, suddenly softened 
towards my friend, now that he was going away. “ I wish 
you were to be married to-morrow, and I were to be best 
man.” 

“ Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed portmanteau 
(how the minister would be shocked !) — but it is heavy ! ” and 
off we sped into the darkness. 

He only just caught the night train at Eltham ; and I 
slept, desolately enough, at my old lodgings at Miss Dawson’s, 
for that night. Of course, the next few days I was busier 
than ever, doing both his work and my own. Then came 
a letter from him, very short and affectionate. He was 
going out in the Saturday steamer, as he had more than 
half expected ; and by the following Monday the man who 
was to succeed him would be down at Eltham. There was 
a P.S., with only these words : — 

“ My nosegay goes with me to Canada ; but I do not 
need it to remind me of Hope Farm.” 

Saturday came ; but it was very late before I could go 
out to the farm. It was a frosty night ; the stars shone clear 
above me, and the road was crisping beneath my feet. They 
must have heard my footsteps, before I got up to the house. 
They were sitting at their usual employments in the house- 
place, when I went in. Phillis’s eyes went beyond me in 
their look of welcome, and then fell in quiet disappointment 
on her work. 

“ And where’s Mr. Holdsworth ? ” asked cousin Holman, 
in a minute or two. “ I hope his cold is not worse — I did 
not like his short cough.” 

I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer 
of unpleasant news. 

“ His cold had need be better — for he’s gone — gone away 
to Canada ! ” 

I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I thus abruptly 
told my news. 

“ To Canada I ” said the minister. 

“ Gone away ! ” said his wife. 

6s 


F 


Cousin Phillis 

But no word from Phillis. 

“ Yes ! ” said I. “He found a letter at Hornby, when 
we got home the other night — when we got home from here ; 
he ought to have got it sooner ; he was ordered to go up to 
London directly, and to see some people about a new hne 
in Canada ; and he’s gone to lay it down ; he has sailed 
to-day. He was sadly grieved not to have time to come out 
and wish you all good-bye ; but he started for London within 
two hours after he got that letter. He bade me thank you 
most gratefully for all your kindnesses ; he was very sorry 
not to come here once again.” 

Phillis got up and left the room with noiseless steps. 

“ I am very sorry,” said the minister. 

“ I am sure so am I ! ” said cousin Holman. “ I was 
real fond of that lad, ever since I nursed him last June after 
that bad fever.” 

The minister went on asking me questions respecting 
Holdsworth's future plans, and brought out a large old- 
fashioned atlas, that he might find out the exact places 
between which the new railroad was to run. Then supper 
was ready ; it was always on the table as soon as the clock 
on the stairs struck eight, and down came Phillis — her face 
white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance at me ; for I am 
afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of sympathetic 
interest as she entered the room. Never a word did she 
say — never a question did she ask about the absent friend ; 
yet she forced herself to talk. 

And so it was all the next day. She was as pale as 
could be, hke one who has received some shock; but she 
would not let me talk to her, and she tried hard to behave 
as usual. Two or three times I repeated, in public, the 
various affectionate messages to the family with which I 
was charged by Holdsworth ; but she took no more notice 
of them than if my words had been empty air. And in this 
mood I left her on the Sabbath evening. 

My new master was not half so indulgent as my old one. 
He kept up strict discipline as to hours ; so that it was some 

66 


Cousin Phillis 

time before I could again go out, even to pay a call at the 
Hope Farm. 

It was a cold, misty evening in November. The air, even 
indoors, seemed full of haze ; yet there was a great log 
binming on the hearth, which ought to have made the room 
cheerful. Cousin Holman and Phillis were sitting at the 
little round table before the fire, working away in silence. 
The minister had his books out on the dresser, seemingly 
deep in study, by the light of his solitary candle ; perhaps 
the fear of disturbing him made the unusual stillness of the 
room. But a welcome was ready for me from all ; not noisy, 
not demonstrative — that it never was ; my damp wrappers 
were taken off, the next meal was hastened, and a chair 
placed for me on one side the fire, so that I pretty much 
commanded a view of the room. My eye caught on Phillis, 
looking so pale and weary, and with a sort of aching tone 
(if I may call it so) in her voice. She was doing all the 
accustomed things — fulfilling small household duties, but 
somehow differently — I can’t tell you how, for she was just 
as deft and quick in her movements, only the light spring 
was gone out of them. Cousin Holman began to question 
me ; even the minister put aside his books, and came and 
stood on the opposite side of the fireplace, to hear what waft 
of intelligence I brought. I had first to tell them why I had 
not been to see them for so long — more than five weeks. 
The answer was simple enough : business and the necessity 
of attending strictly to the orders of a new superintendent, 
who had not yet learned trust, much less indulgence. The 
minister nodded his approval of my conduct, and said — 

“ Eight, Paul ! ‘ Servants, obey in all things your masters 
according to the flesh.’ I have had my fears lest you had 
too much license under Edward Holdsworth.” 

“ Ah,” said cousin Holman, “ poor Mr. Holdsworth ! he’ll 
be on the salt seas by this time ! ” 

“ No, indeed,” said I; “he’s landed. I have had a letter 
from him from Hahfax.” 

Immediately a shower of questions fell thick upon me 

67 


Cousin Phillis 

“ When ? ” “ How ? ” “ What was he doing ? ” “ How did 
he like it ? ” “ What sort of a voyage ? ” &c. 

“ Many is the time we thought of Jiini when the wind 
was blowing so hard; the old quince-tree is blown down, 
Paul, that on the right hand of the great pear-tree ; it was 
blown down last Monday week, and it was that night that 
I asked the minister to pray in an especial manner for all 
them that went down in ships upon the great deep ; and he 
said then, that Mr. Holdsworth might be already landed; 
but I said, even if the prayer did not fit him, it was sure to 
be fitting somebody out at sea, who would need the Lord’s 
care. Both PhiUis and I thought he would be a month 
on the seas.” 

Phillis began to speak ; but her voice did not come rightly 
at first. It was a Uttle higher pitched than usual, when she 
said — 

“ We thought he would be a month, if he went in a 
sailing-vessel, or perhaps longer. I suppose he went in a 
steamer ? ” 

“ Old Obadiah Grimshaw was more than six weeks in 
getting to America,” observed cousin Holman. 

“ I presume he cannot as yet tell how he likes his new 
work? ” asked the minister. 

“No! he is but just landed; it is but one page long. 
I’ll read it to you, shall I ? — 

“ * Dear Paul, — We are safe on shore, after a rough 
passage. Thought you would like to hear this ; but home- 
ward-bound steamer is making signals for letters. Will 
write again soon. It seems a year since I left Hornby. 
Longer, since I was at the farm. I have got my nosegay 
safe. Bemember me to the Holmans. — Yours, 

' E. H.* ” 

“ That’s not much, certainly,” said the minister. “ But 
it’s a comfort to know he’s on land these blowy nights.” 

Phillis said nothing. She kept her head bent down over 
63 


Cousin Phillis 

her work ; but I don’t think she put a stitch in, while I was 
reading the letter. I wondered if she understood what nose- 
gay was meant ; but I could not tell. When next she lifted 
up her face, there were two spots of brilliant colour on the 
cheeks that had been so pale before. After I had spent an 
hour or two there, I was bound to return back to Hornby. 
I told them, I did not know when I could come again, as 
we — by which I mean the company — had undertaken the 
Hensleydale line; that branch for which poor Holdsworth 
was surveying, when he caught his fever. 

“ But you’ll have a holiday at Christmas,” said my cousin. 
“ Surely, they’ll not be such heathens as to work you then ? ” 

“ Perhaps the lad will be going home,” said the minister, 
as if to mitigate his wife’s urgency ; but, for all that, I believe 
he wanted me to come. Phillis fixed her eyes on me with 
a wistful expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, I had no 
thought of resisting. Under my new master I had no hope 
of a holiday long enough to enable me to go to Birmingham 
and see my parents with any comfort ; and nothing could 
be pleasanter to me than to find myself at home at my 
cousin’s for a day or two, then. So it was fixed that we 
were to meet in Hornby Chapel on Christmas-Day, and that 
I was to accompany them home after service, and, if possible, 
to stay over the next day. 

I was not able to get to chapel till late on the appointed 
day; and so I took a seat near the door in considerable 
shame, although it really was not my fault. When the 
service was ended, I went and stood in the porch, to await 
the coming-out of my cousins. Some worthy people belong- 
ing to the congregation clustered into a group, just where I 
stood, and exchanged the good wishes of the season. It had 
just begun to snow ; and this occasioned a Uttle delay, and 
they fell into further conversation. I was not attending to 
what was not meant for me to hear, till I caught the name 
of Phillis Holman. And then I listened; where was the 
harm ? 


69 


Cousin Phillis 

** I never saw any one so changed ! ” 

“ I asked Mrs. Holman,*’ quoth another, “ * Is Phillis 
well ? ’ and she just said she had been having a cold which 
had pulled her down ; she did not seem to think anything 
of it.” 

“ They had best take care of her,” said one of the oldest 
of the good ladies ; “ Phillis comes of a family as is not 
long-lived. Her mother’s sister, Lydia Green, her own 
aunt as was, died of a decline just when she was about 
this lass’s age.” 

This ill-omened talk was broken in upon by the coming- 
out of the minister, his wife and daughter, and the conse- 
quent interchange of Christmas compliments. I had had a 
shock, and felt heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly up to 
making the appropriate replies to the kind greetings of my 
relations. I looked askance at Phillis. She had certainly 
grown taller and slighter, and was thinner; but there was 
a flush of colour on her face which deceived me for a time, 
and made me think she was looking as well as ever. I only 
saw her paleness after we had returned to the farm, and she 
had subsided into silence and quiet. Her grey eyes looked 
hollow and sad ; her complexion was of a dead white. But 
she went about just as usual ; at least, just as she had done 
the last time I was there, and seemed to have no ailment ; 
and I was inclined to think that my cousin was right, when 
she had answered the inquiries of the good-natured gossips, 
and told them that Phillis was suffering from the conse- 
quences of a bad cold, nothing more. 

I have said that I was to stay over the next day ; a great 
deal of snow had come down, but not all, they said, though 
the ground was covered deep with the white fall. The 
minister was anxiously housing his cattle, and preparing all 
things for a long continuance of the same kind of weather. 
The men were chopping wood, sending wheat to the mill to 
be ground before the road should become impassable for a 
cart and horse. My cousin and Phillis had gone upstairs 
to the apple-room, to cover up the fruit from the frost. I 

70 


Cousin Phillis 

had been out the greater part of the morning, and came in 
about an hour before dinner. To my surprise, knowing how 
she had planned to be engaged, I found Phillis sitting at the 
dresser, resting her head on her two hands and reading, or 
seeming to read. She did not look up when I came in, but 
murmured something about her mother having sent her 
down out of the cold. It flashed across me that she was 
crying, but I put it down to some little spurt of temper ; I 
might have known better than to suspect the gentle, serene 
Phillis of crossness, poor girl ; I stooped down, and began 
to stir and build up the fire, which appeared to have been 
neglected. While my head was down I heard a noise which 
made me pause and listen — a sob, an unmistakable, irre- 
pressible sob. I started up. 

“ Phillis ! ” I cried, going towards her, with my hand 
out, to take hers for sympathy with her sorrow, whatever 
it was. But she was too quick for me ; she held her hand 
out of my grasp, for fear of my detaining her ; as she quickly 
passed out of the house, she said — 

“ Don’t, Paul ! I cannot bear it ! ” and passed me, still 
sobbing, and went out into the keen, open air. 

I stood still and wondered. What could have come to 
Phillis ? The most perfect harmony prevailed in the family ; 
and Phillis especially, good and gentle as she was, was so 
beloved that, if they had found out that her finger ached, it 
would have cast a shadow over their hearts. Had I done 
anything to vex her ? No : she was crying before I came 
in. I went to look at her book — one of those unintelligible 
Italian books. I could make neither head nor tail of it. I 
saw some pencil-notes on the margin, in Holdsworth’s 
handwriting. 

Could that be it ? Could that be the cause of her white 
looks, her weary eyes, her wasted figure, her struggling sobs ? 
This idea came upon me like a flash of lightning on a dark 
night, making all things so clear we cannot forget them 
afterwards, when the gloomy obscurity returns. I was still 
standing with the book in my hand, when I heard cousin 

71 


Cousin Phillis 

Holman’s footsteps on the stairs ; and, as I did not wish to 
speak to her just then, I followed Phillis’s example, and 
rushed out of the house. The snow was lying on the ground ; 
I could track her feet by the marks they had made ; I could 
see where Eover had joined her. I followed on, till I came 
to a great stack of wood in the orchard — it was built up 
against the back- wall of the outbuildings — and I recollected 
then how Phillis had told me, that first day when we strolled 
about together, that underneath this stack had been her 
hermitage, her sanctuary, when she was a child; how she 
used to bring her book to study there, or her work, when 
she was not wanted in the house ; and she had now evidently 
gone back to this quiet retreat of her childhood, forgetful of 
the clue given me by her footmarks on the new-fallen snow. 
The stack was built up very high ; but through the interstices 
of the sticks I could see her figure, although I did not all 
at once perceive how I could get to her. She was sitting 
on a log of wood, Eover by her. She had laid her cheek on 
Eover’ s head, and had her arm round his neck, partly for a 
pillow, partly from an instinctive craving for warmth on 
that bitter cold day. She was making a low moan, like an 
animal in pain, or perhaps more hke the sobbing of the wind. 
Eover, highly flattered by her caress, and also, perhaps, 
touched by sympathy, was flapping his heavy tail against 
the ground, but not otherwise moving a hair, until he heard 
my approach with his quick erect ears. Then, with a short, 
abrupt bark of distrust, he sprang up, as if to leave his 
mistress. Both he and I were immovably still for a moment. 
I was not sure if what I longed to do was wise; and yet I 
could not bear to see the sweet serenity of my dear cousin’s 
life so disturbed by a suffering which I thought I could 
assuage. But Eover’s ears were sharper than my breathing 
was noiseless : he heard me, and sprang out from under 
PhiUis’s restraining hand. 

“ Oh, Eover, don’t you leave me too ! ” she plained out. 

“ PhilHs ! ” said I, seeing by Eover’s exit that the entrance 
to where she sat was to be found on the other side of the 

72 


Cousin Phillis 

stack. ** Phillis, come out ! You have got a cold already ; 
and it is not fit for you to sit there on such a day as this. 
You know how displeased and anxious it would make 
them all.” 

She sighed, but obeyed ; stooping a httle, she came out, 
and stood upright, opposite to me in the lonely, leafless 
orchard. Her face looked so meek and so sad that I felt as 
if I ought to beg her pardon for my necessarily authoritative 
words. 

“ Sometimes I feel the house so close,” she said; “ and I 
used to sit under the wood-stack when I was a child. It 
was very kind of you ; but there was no need to come after 
me. I don’t catch cold easily.” 

“ Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis ! I have got 
something to say to you ; and I can’t stand this cold, if you 
can.” 

I think she would have fain run away again ; but her fit 
of energy was all spent. She followed me unwillingly enough 
— that I could see. The place to which I took her was full 
of the fragrant breath of the cows, and was a little warmer 
than the outer air. I put her inside, and stood myself in the 
doorway, thinking how I could best begin. At last I plunged 
into it. 

“I must see that you don’t get cold for more reasons 
than one ; if you are ill, Holdsworth will be so anxious and 
miserable out there ” (by which I meant Canada) — 

She shot one penetrating look at me, and then turned 
her face away, with a sHghtly impatient movement. If she 
could have run away then, she would ; but I held the means 
of exit in my own power. “ In for a penny, in for a pound,” 
thought I ; and I went on rapidly, anyhow. 

“ He talked so much about you, just before he left — that 
night after he had been here, you know — and you had given 
him those flowers.” She put her hands up to hide her face, 
but she was listening now — listening with all her ears. 

“ He had never spoken much about you before ; but the 
sudden going-away unlocked his heart, and he told me how 

73 


Cousin Phillis 

he loved you, and how he hoped on his return that you 
might be his wife.” 

“ Don’t,” said she, almost gasping out the word, which 
she had tried once or twice before to speak ; but her voice 
had been choked. Now, she put her hand backwards ; she 
had quite turned away from me, and felt for mine. She 
gave it a soft Hngering pressure ; and then she put her arms 
down on the wooden division, and laid her head on it, and 
cried quiet tears. I did not understand her at once, and 
feared lest I had mistaken the whole case, and only annoyed 
her. I went up to her. “ Oh, Phillis ! I am so sorry — I 
thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it ; he did 
talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and some- 
how I thought it would give you pleasure.” 

She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look ! 
Her eyes, glittering with tears as they were, expressed an 
almost heavenly happiness ; her tender mouth was curved 
with rapture — her colour vivid and blushing ; but, as if she 
was afraid her face expressed too much — more than the thank- 
fulness to me she was essaying to Speak — she hid it again 
almost immediately. So it was all right then, and my 
conjecture was well-founded. I tried to remember some- 
thing more to tell her of what he had said ; but again she 
stopped me. 

“Don’t,” she said. She still kept her face covered and 
hidden. In half a minute she added, in a very low voice, 
“ Please, Paul, I think I would rather not hear any more — 
I don’t mean but what I have — but what I am very much 

obliged Only — only, I think I would rather hear the 

rest from himself when he comes back.” 

And then she cried a httle more, in quite a different way. 
I did not say any more ; I waited for her. By-and-by, she 
turned towards me — not meeting my eyes, however; and, 
putting her hand in mine, just as if we were two children, 
she said — 

“We had best go back now — I don’t look as if I had been 
crying, do I ? ” 


74 


Cousin Phillis 

“ You look as if you had a bad cold,” was all the answer 
I made. 

“ Oh I but I am — I am quite well, only cold ; and a good 
run will warm me. Come along, Paul.” 

So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the 
threshold of the house, she stopped — 

“ Paul, please, we won’t speak about that again.” 


PABT IV 

When I went over on Easter-Day, I heard the chapel-gossips 
complimenting cousin Holman on her daughter’s blooming 
looks, quite forgetful of their sinister prophecies three months 
before. And I looked at Phillis, and did not wonder at their 
words. I had not seen her since the day after Christmas- 
Day. I had left the Hope Farm only a few hours after I 
had told her the news which had quickened her heart into 
renewed life and vigour. The remembrance of our con- 
versation in the cow-house was vividly in my mind, as I 
looked at her when her bright healthy appearance was re- 
marked upon. As her eyes met mine, our mutual recollec- 
tions flashed intelligence from one to the other. She turned 
away, her colour heightening as she did so. She seemed to 
be shy of me for the first few hours after our meeting, and I 
felt lather vexed with her for her conscious avoidance of me 
after my long absence. I had stepped a httle out of my usual 
line in telling her what I did ; not that I had received any 
charge of secrecy, or given even the slightest promise to 
Holdsworth that I would not repeat his words. But I had 
an uneasy feeling sometimes, when I thought of what I had 
done in the excitement of seeing Phillis so ill and in so much 
trouble. I meant to have told Holdsworth when I wrote 
next to him ; but, when I had my half-finished letter before 
me, I sate with my pen in my hand, hesitating. I had more 

75 


Cousin Phillis 

scruple in revealing what I had found out or guessed at of 
Phillis’s secret than in repeating to her his spoken words. I 
did not think I had any right to say out to him what I be- 
lieved — namely, that she loved him dearly, and had felt his 
absence even to the injury of her health. Yet, to explain 
what I had done in telling her how he had spoken about her 
that last night, it would be necessary to give my reasons, so 
I had settled within myself to leave it alone. As she had 
told me she should like to hear all the details and fuller 
particulars and more exphcit declarations first from him, so 
he should have the pleasure of extracting the delicious tender 
secret from her maidenly lips. I would not betray my 
guesses, my surmises, my all but certain knowledge of the 
state of her heart. I had received two letters from him after 
he had settled to his business; they were full of life and 
energy ; but in each there had been a message to the family 
at the Hope Farm of more than common regard, and a slight 
but distinct mention of Phillis herself, showing that she 
stood single and alone in his memory. These letters I had 
sent on to the minister ; for he was sure to care for them, 
even supposing he had been unacquainted with their writer, 
because they were so clever and so picturesquely-worded 
that they brought, as it were, a whiff of foreign atmosphere 
into his circumscribed fife. I used to wonder what was the 
trade or business in which the minister would not have 
thriven, mentally I mean, if it had so happened that ho had 
been called into that state. He would have made a capital 
engineer, that I know ; and he had a fancy for the sea, ‘fike 
many other land-locked men to whom the great deep is a 
mystery and a fascination. He read law-books with relish ; 
and once, happening to borrow “ De Lolme on the British 
Constitution ” (or some such title), he talked about juris- 
prudence till he was far beyond my depth. But to return 
to Holdsworth’s letters. When the minister sent them back, 
he also wrote out a list of questions suggested by their 
perusal, which I was to pass on in my answers to Holds- 
worth, until I thought of suggesting a direct correspondence 

76 


Cousin Phillis 

between the two. That was the state of things as regarded 
the absent one when I went to the farm for my Easter visit, 
and when I found Phillis in that state of shy reserve towards 
me which I have named before. I thought she was ungrate- 
ful ; for I was not quite sure if I had done wisely in having 
told her what I did. I had committed a fault, or a folly, 
perhaps, and all for her sake ; and here was she, less friends 
with me than she had ever been before. This httle estrange- 
ment only lasted a few hours. I think that, as soon as she 
felt pretty sure of there being no recurrence, either by word, 
look, or allusion, to the one subject that was predominant 
in her mind, she came back to her old sisterly ways with 
me. She had much to tell me of her own familiar interests : 
how Eover had been ill, and how anxious they had all of 
them been, and how, after some little discussion between 
her father and her, both equally grieved by the sufferings of 
the old dog, he had been “ remembered in the household 
prayers,” and how he had begun to get better only the very 
next day ; and then she would have led me into a conversa- 
tion on the right ends of prayer, and on special providences, 
and I know not what; only, I “ jibbed” like their old cart- 
horse, and refused to stir a step in that direction. Then we 
talked about the different broods of chickens, and she showed 
me the hens that were good mothers, and told me the 
characters of all the poultry with the utmost good-faith; 
^nd in all good-faith I listened, for I believe there was a 
great deal of truth in all she said. And then we strolled 
on into the wood beyond the ash-meadow, and both of us 
sought for early primroses and the fresh green crinkled 
leaves. She was not afraid of being alone with me after 
the first day. I never saw her so lovely, or so happy. I 
think she hardly knew why she was so happy all the time. 
I can see her now, standing under the budding branches of 
the grey trees, over which a tinge of green seemed to be 
deepening day after day, her sun-bonnet fallen back on her 
neck, her hands full of delicate wood-flowers, quite uncon- 
scious of my gaze, but intent on sweet mockery of some 

77 


Cousin Phillis 

bird in neighbouring bush or tree. She had the art of 
warbling, and replying to the notes of different birds, and 
knew their song, their hahits and ways, more accurately 
than any one else I ever knew. She had often done it 
at my request the spring before; but this year she really 
gurgled, and whistled, and warbled, just as they did, out of 
the very fulness and joy of her heart. She was more than 
ever the very apple of her father’s eye ; her mother gave 
her both her own share of love and that of the dead child 
who had died in infancy. I have heard cousin Holman 
murmur, after a long dreamy look at Phillis, and tell herself 
how like she was growing to Johnnie, and soothe herself 
with plaintive inarticulate sounds, and many gentle shakes 
of the head, for the aching sense of loss she would never 
get over in this world. The old servants about the place 
had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of the land, 
common to most agricultural labourers; not often stirred 
into activity or expression. My cousin Phillis was like a 
rose that had come to full bloom on the sunny side of a 
lonely house, sheltered from storms. I have read in some 
book of poetry — 

“ A maid whom there were none to praise. 

And very few to love.” 

And somehow those lines always reminded me of Phillis ; 
yet they were not true of her either. I never heard her 
praised ; and out of her own household there were very few 
to love her ; but, though no one spoke out their approbation, 
she always did right in her parents’ eyes, out of her natural 
simple goodness and wisdom. Holdsworth’s name was never 
mentioned between us when we were alone ; but I had sent 
on his letters to the minister, as I have said ; and more than 
once he began to talk about our absent friend, when he was 
smoking his pipe after the day’s work was done. Then 
Phillis hung her head a little over her work, and listened in 
silence. 

“ I miss him more than I thought for ; no offence to you, 

78 


Cousin Phillis 

Paul ! I said once, his company was like dram-drinking ; 
that was before I knew him; and perhaps I spoke in a 
spirit of judgment. To some men’s minds everything pre- 
sents itself strongly, and they speak accordingly ; and so did 
he. And I thought, in my vanity of censorship, that his 
were not true and sober words ; they would not have been 
if I had used them, but they were so to a man of his class 
of perceptions. I thought of the measure which I had been 
meting out to him, when Brother Eobinson was here last 
Thursday, and told me that a poor httle quotation I was 
making from the ‘ Georgies ’ savoured of vain babbling and 
profane heathenism. He went so far as to say that, by learn- 
ing other languages than our own, we were flying in the face 
of the Lord’s purpbse when He had said, at the building of the 
Tower of Babel, that He would confound their languages so 
that they should not understand each other’s speech. As 
Brother Eobinson was to me, so was I to the quick wits, 
bright senses, and ready words of Holdsworth.” 

The first little cloud upon my peace came in the shape of 
a letter from Canada, in which there were two or three 
sentences that troubled me more than they ought to have 
done, to judge merely from the words employed. It was 
this : — “ I should feel dreary enough in this out-of-the-way 
place, if it were not for a friendship I have formed with a 
French Canadian of the name of Ventadour. He and his 
family are a great resource to me in the long evenings. I 
never heard such delicious vocal music as the voices of these 
Ventadour boys and girls in their part-songs ; and the foreign 
element retained in their characters and manner of living 
reminds me of some of the happiest days of my life. Lucille, 
the second daughter, is curiously like Phillis Holman.” In 
vain I said to myself, that it was probably this likeness that 
made him take pleasure in the society of the Ventadour 
family. In vain I told my anxious fancy, that nothing could 
be more natural than this intimacy, and that there was no 
sign of its leading to any consequence that ought to disturb 
me. I had a presentiment, and I was disturbed; and I 

79 


Cousin Phillis 

could not reason it away. I dare say my presentiment was 
rendered more persistent and keen by the doubts which 
would force themselves into my mind, as to whether I had 
done well in repeating Holdsworth’s words to Phillis. Her 
state of vivid happiness this summer was markedly different 
to the peaceful serenity of former days. If, in my thought- 
fulness at noticing this, I caught her eye, she blushed and 
sparkled all over, guessing that I was remembering our joint 
secret. Her eyes fell before mine, as if she could hardly 
bear me to see the revelation of their bright glances. And 
yet I considered again, and comforted myself by the reflec- 
tion that, if this change had been anything more than my 
silly fancy, her father or her mother would have perceived it. 
But they went on in tranquil unconsciousness and undis- 
turbed peace. 

A change in my own life was quickly approaching. In 

the July of this year my occupation on the railway and 

its branches came to an end. The hnes were completed; 

and I was to leave shire, to return to Birmingham, 

where there was a niche already provided for me in my 
father’s prosperous business. But, before I left the north, 
it was an understood thing amongst us all that I was to go 
and pay a visit of some weeks at the Hope Farm. My 
father was as much pleased at this plan as I was ; and the 
dear family of cousins often spoke of things to be done, and 
sights to be shown me, during this visit. My want of 
wisdom in having told “ that thing ” (under such ambiguous 
words I concealed the injudicious confidence I had made 
to Phillis) was the only drawback to my anticipations of 
pleasure. 

The ways of life were too simple at the Hope Farm for 
my coming to them to make the shghtest disturbance. I 
knew my room, hke a son of the house. I knew the regular 
course of their days, and that I was expected to fall into it, 
hke one of the family. Deep summer peace brooded over 
the place ; the warm golden air was fiUed with the niurmur 
of insects near at hand, the more distant sound of voices out 

So 


Cousin Phillis 

in the fields, the clear far-away rumble of carts over the 
stone-paved lanes miles away. The heat was too great for 
the birds to be singing ; only now and then one might hear 
the wood-pigeons in the trees beyond the ash-field. The 
cattle stood knee-deep in the pond, flicking their tails about 
to keep off the flies. The minister stood in the hay-field, 
without hat or cravat, coat or waistcoat, panting and smiling. 
Phillis had been leading the row of farm-servants, turning 
the swathes of fragrant hay with measured movement. She 
went to the end — to the hedge, and then, throwing down her 
rake, she came to me with her free sisterly welcome. “ Go, 
Paul ! ” said the minister. “We need all hands to make use 
of the sunshine to-day. ‘ Whatsoever thine hand findeth to 
do, do it with all thy might.’ It will be a healthy change of 
work for thee, lad; and I find my best rest in change of 
work.” So off I went, a willing labourer, following Phillis’s 
lead ; it was the primitive distinction of rank ; the boy who 
frightened the sparrows off the fruit was the last in our rear. 
We did not leave off till the red sun was gone down behind 
the fir-trees bordering the common. Then we went home to 
supper — prayers — to bed; some bird singing far into the 
night, as I heard it through my open window, and the 
poultry beginning their clatter and cackle in the earliest 
morning. I had carried what luggage I immediately needed 
with me from my lodgings, and the rest was to be sent by the 
carrier. He brought it to the farm betimes that morning; 
and along with it he brought a letter or two that had arrived 
since I had left. I was talking to cousin Holman^ — about 
my mother’s ways of making bread, I remember; cousin 
Holman was questioning me, and had got me far beyond, 
my depth — in the house-place, when the letters were brought 
in by one of the men, and I had to pay the carrier for his 
trouble before I could look at them. A bill — a Canadian 
letter ! What instinct made me so thankful that I was 
alone with my dear unobservant cousin ? What made me 
hurry them away into my coat-pocket ? I do not know. I 
felt strange and sick, and made irrelevant answers, I am 

8i G 


Cousin Phillis 

afraid. Then I went to my room, ostensibly to carry up my 
boxes. I sate on the side of my bed and opened my letter 
from Holdsworth. It seemed to me as if I bad read its 
contents before, and knew exactly what be bad got to say. 
I knew be was going to be married to Lucille Ventadour — 
nay, that be was married ; for this was the 5tb of J uly , and 
be wrote word that bis marriage was fixed to take place on 
the 29tb of June. I knew all the reasons be gave, all the 
raptures be went into. I held the letter loosely in my 
bands, and looked into vacancy ; yet I saw a chaffinch’s nest 
on the lichen-covered trunk of an old apple-tree opposite my 
window, and saw the mother-bird come fluttering in to feed 
her brood — and yet I did not see it, although it seemed to 
me afterwards as if I could have drawn every fibre, every 
feather. I was stirred up to action by the merry sound of 
voices and the clamp of rustic feet coming home for the 
mid-day meal. I knew I must go down to dinner ; I knew, 
too, I must tell PbiUis ; for in his happy egotism, his new- 
fangled foppery, Holdsworth bad put in a P.S., saying that 
be should send wedding-cards to me and some other Hornby 
and Eltbam acquaintances, and “ to bis kind friends at Hope 
Farm.” PbiUis bad faded away to one among several “ kind 
friends.” I don’t know bow I got through dinner that day. 
I remember forcing myself to eat, and talking bard ; but I 
also recoUect the wondering look in the minister’s eyes. He 
was not one to think evil without cause ; but many a one 
would have taken me for drunk. As soon as I decently 
could, I left the table, saying I would go out for a walk. At 
first, I must have tried to stun reflection by rapid walking, 
for I bad lost myself on the high moorlands far beyond the 
familiar gorse-covered common, before I was obbged for 
very weariness to slacken my pace. I kept wishing — oh ! bow 
fervently wishing — I bad never committed that blunder ; that 
the one bttle half -hour’s indiscretion could be blotted out. 
Alternating with this was anger against Holdsworth ; unjust 
enough, I dare say. I suppose I stayed in that solitary place 
for a good hour or more; and then I turned homewards, 

82 


Cousin Phillis 

resolving to get over the telling Phillis at the first oppor- 
tunity, hut shrinking from the fulfilment of my resolution so 
much that, when I came into the house (doors and windows 
open wide in the sultry weather) and saw Phillis alone in 
the kitchen, I became quite sick with apprehension. She 
was standing hy the dresser, cutting up a great household 
loaf into hunches of bread for the hungry labourers who 
might come in any minute, for the heavy thunderclouds were 
over-spreading the sky. She looked round as she heard my 
step. 

“ You should have been in the field, helping with the 
hay,” said she, in her calm, pleasant voice. I had heard her, as 
I came near the house, softly chanting some hymn-tune ; and 
the peacefulness of that seemed to be brooding over her now. 

“ Perhaps I should. It looks as if it was going to rain.” 

** Yes, there is thunder about. Mother has had to go 
to bed with one of her bad headaches. Now you are come 
in ” 

“ Phillis,” said I, rushing at my subject and interrupting 
her, “ I went a long walk to think over a letter I had this 
morning — a letter from Canada. You don’t know how it 
has grieved me.” I held it out to her as I spoke. Her 
colour changed a little ; but it was more the reflection of my 
face, I think, than because she formed any definite idea from 
my words. StiU she did not take the letter. I had to bid 
her read it, before she quite understood what I wished. She 
sate down rather suddenly as she received it into her hands ; 
and, spreading it on the dresser before her, she rested her 
forehead on the palms of her hands, her arms supported on 
the table, her figure a little averted, and her countenance 
thus shaded. I looked out of the open window; my heart 
was very heavy. How peaceful it all seemed in the farm- 
yard! Peace and plenty. How still and deep was the 
silence of the house ! Tick-tick went the unseen clock on 
the wide staircase. I had heard the rustle once, when she 
turned over the page of thin paper. She must have read to 
the end. Yet she did not move, or say a word, or even sigh, 

S3 


Cousin Phillis 

I kept on looking out of the window, my hands in my 
pockets. I wonder how long that time really was? It 
seemed to me interminable — unbearable. At length I looked 
round at her. She must have felt my look, for she changed 
her attitude with a quick sharp movement, and caught my 
eyes. 

“ Don’t look so sorry, Paul,” she said. “ Don’t, please. 
I can’t bear it. There is nothing to be sorry for. I think 
not, at least. You have not done wrong, at any rate.” I 
felt that I groaned, but I don’t think she heard me. “ And 
he— there’s no wrong in his marrying, is there ? I’m sure I 
hope he’ll be happy. Oh ! how I hope it ! ” These last 
words were like a wail; but I believe she was afraid of 
breaking down, for she changed the key in which she spoke, 
and hurried on. “ Lucille — that’s our English Lucy, I sup- 
pose? Lucille Holdsworth! It’s a pretty name; and I 

hope 1 forget what I was going to say. Oh! it was 

this. Paul, I think we need never speak about this again ; 
only, remember, you are not to be sorry. You have not done 
wrong; you have been very, very kind; and, if I see you 
looking grieved, I don’t know what I might do; — I might 
break down, you know.” 

I think she was on the point of doing so then ; but the 
dark storm came dashing down, and the thundercloud broke 
right above the house, as it seemed. Her mother, roused 
from sleep, called out for Phillis ; the men and women from 
the hay-field came running into shelter, drenched through. 
The minister followed, smiling, and not unpleasantly excited 
by the war of elements ; for, by dint of hard work through 
the long summer’s day, the greater part of the hay was 
safely housed in the barn in the field. Once or twice in the 
succeeding bustle I came across Phillis, always busy, and, as 
it seemed to me, always doing the right thing. When I was 
alone in my own room at night, I allowed myself to feel 
relieved : and to believe that the worst was over, and was 
not so very bad after all. But the succeeding days were 
very miserable. Sometimes I thought it must be my fancy 

84 


Cousin Phillis 

that falsely represented Phillis to me as strangely changed ; 
for surely, if this idea of mine was well-founded, her parents 
— her father and mother — her own flesh and blood — would 
have been the first to perceive it. Yet they went on in their 
household peace and content; if anything, a little more 
cheerfully than usual, for the “ harvest of the first fruits,” as 
the minister called it, had been more bounteous than usual, 
and there was plenty all around, in ^hich the humblest 
labourer was made to share. After the one thunderstorm, 
came one or two lovely serene summer days, during which 
the hay was all carried ; and then succeeded long soft rains, 
filhng the ears of corn and causing the mown grass to spring 
afresh. The minister allowed himself a few more hours of 
relaxation and home enjoyment than usual during this wet 
spell : hard earth-bound frost was his winter holiday ; these 
wet days, after the hay harvest, his summer holiday. We 
sate with open windows, the fragrance and the freshness 
called out by the soft-falling rain filling the house-place; 
while the quiet ceaseless patter among the leaves outside 
ought to have had the same lulling effect as all other gentle 
perpetual sounds, such as mill-wheels and bubbling springs, 
have on the nerves of happy people. But two of us were 
not happy. I was sure enough of myself, for one. I was 
worse than sure — I was wretchedly anxious about Phillis. 
Ever since that day of the thunderstorm there had been a 
new, sharp, discordant sound to me in her voice, a sort of 
jangle in her tone ; and her restless eyes had no quietness in 
them ; and her colour came and went, without a cause that I 
could find out. The minister, happy in ignorance of what 
most concerned him, brought out his books ; his learned 
volumes and classics. Whether he read and talked to Phillis, 
or to me, I do not know ; but, feeling by instinct that she was 
not, could not be, attending to the peaceful details, so strange 
and foreign to the turmoil in her heart, I forced myself to 
listen, and if possible to understand. 

“ Look here ! ” said the minister, tapping the old vellum- 
bound book he held; “ in the first ‘ Georgic ’ he speaks of rolling 

85 


Cousin Phillis 

and irrigation ; a little further on, he insists on choice of the 
best seed, and advises us to keep the drains clear. Again, 
no Scotch farmer could give shrewder advice than to cut 
light meadows while the dew is on, even though it involve 
night- work. It is all living truth in these days.” He began 
beating time with a ruler upon his knee, to some Latin lines 
he read aloud just then. I suppose the monotonous chant 
irritated Philhs to some irregular energy, for I remember 
the quick knotting and breaking of the thread with which 
she was sewing. I never hear that snap repeated now, 
without suspecting some sting or stab troubling the heart 
of the worker. Cousin Holman, at her peaceful knitting, 
noticed the reason why Phillis had so constantly to 
interrupt the progress of her seam. 

“ It is bad thread, I’m afraid,” she said, in a gentle, 
sympathetic voice. But it was too much for Phillis. 

“ The thread is bad — everything is bad — I am so tired of 
it all!” And she put down her work, and hastily left the 
room. I do not suppose that in all her life Phillis had ever 
shown so much temper before. In many a family the tone, 
the manner, would not have been noticed ; but here it fell 
with a sharp surprise upon the sweet, calm atmosphere of 
home. The minister put down ruler and book, and pushed 
his spectacles up to his forehead. The mother looked dis- 
tressed for a moment, and then smoothed her features and 
said in an explanatory tone — “It’s the weather, I think. 
Some people feel it different to others. It always brings on 
a headache with me.” She got up to follow her daughter, 
but half-way to the door she thought better of it, and came 
back to her seat. Good mother 1 she hoped the better to 
conceal the unusual spirt of temper, by pretending not to 
take much notice of it. “ Go on, minister,” she said ; “ it is 
very interesting what you are reading about; and, when I 
don’t quite understand it, I like the sound of your voice.” 
So he went on, but languidly and irregularly, and beat no 
more time with his ruler to any Latin lines. When the 
dusk came on, early that July night because of the cloudy 

86 


Cousin Phillis 

sky, Phillis came softly back, making as though nothing had 
happened. She took up her work, but it was too dark to do 
many stitches ; and she dropped it soon. Then I saw her 
hand steal into her mother’s, and how this latter fondled it 
with quiet httle caresses, while the minister, as fully aware 
as I was of this tender pantomime, went on talking in a 
happier tone of voice about things as uninteresting to him, 
at the time, I verily beheve, as they were to me ; and that is 
saying a good deal, and shows how much more real what 
was passing before him was, even to a farmer, than the 
agricultural customs of the ancients. 

I remember one thing more — an attack which Betty the 
servant made upon me one day, as I came in through the 
kitchen where she was churning, and stopped to ask her for 
a drink of butter-milk. 

“ I say, cousin Paul ” (she had adopted the family habit of 
addressing me generally as cousin Paul, and always speaking 
of me in that form), “ something’s amiss with our Phillis, 
and I reckon you’ve a good guess what it is. She’s not one 
to take up wi’ such as you ” (not complimentary, but that 
Betty never was, even to those for whom she felt the highest 
respect) ; “ but I’d as lief yon Holdsworth had never come 
near us. So there you’ve a bit o’ my mind.” 

And a very unsatisfactory bit it was. I did not know 
what to answer to the glimpse at the real state of the case 
implied in the shrewd woman’s speech ; so I tried to put her 
oiBf by assuming surprise at her first assertion. 

“ Amiss with Phillis ! I should like to know why you 
think anything is wrong with her. She looks as blooming 
as any one can do.” 

“ Poor lad ! you’re but a big child, after all ; and you’ve 
hkely never beared of a fever-flush. But you know better 
nor that, my fine fellow ! so don’t think for to put me off wi’ 
blooms and blossoms and such-like talk. What makes her 
walk about for hours and hours o’ nights, when she used to 
be abed and asleep ? I sleep next room to her, and hear 
her plain as can be. What makes her come in panting and 

87 


Cousin Phillis 

ready to drop into that chair ” — nodding to one close to the 
door — “ and it’s ‘ Oh ! Betty, some water, please ’ ? That’s 
the way she comes in now, when she used to come back as 
fresh and bright as she went out. If yon friend o’ yours 
has played her false, he’s a deal for t’ answer for : she’s a lass 
who’s as sweet and as sound as a nut, and the very apple of 
her father’s eye, and of her mother’s too, only wi’ her she 
ranks second to th’ minister. You’ll have to look after yon 
chap ; for I, for one, will stand no wrong to our Phillis.” 

What was I to do, or to say ? I wanted to justify Holds- 
worth, to keep Phillis’s secret, and to pacify the woman all 
in the same breath. I did not take the best course, I’m afraid. 

“ I don’t believe Holdsworth ever spoke a word of — of 
love to her in all his life. I am sure he didn’t.” 

“ Ay, ay ! but there’s eyes, and there’s hands, as well as 
tongues; and a man has two o’ th’ one and but one o’ 
t’other.” 

“ And she’s so young ; do you suppose her parents would 
not have seen it ? ” 

“ Well ! if you ax me that, I’ll say out boldly, ‘ No.’ 
They’ve called her ‘ the child ’ so long — ‘ the child ’ is always 
their name for her when they talk on her between them- 
selves, as if never anybody else had a ewe-lamb before them 
— that she’s grown up to be a woman under their very eyes, 
and they look on her still as if she were in her long- clothes. 
And you ne’er heard on a man falling in love wi’ a babby 
in long- clothes ! ” 

“ No ! ” said I, half -laughing. But she went on as grave 
as a judge. 

“ Ay ! you see you’ll laugh at the bare thought on it — 
and I’ll be bound th’ minister, though he’s not a laughing 
man, would ha’ sniggled at th’ notion of falhng in love wi’ 
the child. Where’s Holdsworth off to ? ” 

“ Canada,” said I shortly. 

“ Canada here, Canada there,” she replied testily. “ Tell 
me. how far he’s off, instead of giving me your gibberish. 
Is he a two days’ journey away ? or a three ? or a week ? ” 

88 


Cousin Phillis 

“He’s ever so far off — three weeks at the least,” cried 
I in despair. “And he’s either married, or just going to be. 
So there ! ” I expected a fresh burst of anger. But no ; 
the matter was too serious. Betty sate down, and kept 
silence for a minute or two. She looked so miserable and 
downcast, that I could not help going on, and taking her 
a little into my confidence. 

“ It is quite true what I said. I know he never spoke 
a word to her. I think he liked her ; but it’s all over now. 
The best thing we can do — the best and kindest for her — 
and I know you love her, Betty ” 

“ I nursed her in my arms ; I gave her little brother his 
last taste o’ earthly food,” said Betty, putting her apron up 
to her eyes. 

“ Well ! don’t let us show her we guess that she is 
grieving; she’ll get over it the sooner. Her father and 
mother don’t even guess at it, and we must make as if we 
didn’t. It’s too late now to do anything else.” 

“ I’ll never let on ; I know nought. I’ve known true 
love mysel’, in my day. But I wish he’d been farred before 
he ever came near this house, with his ‘ Please Betty ’ this, 
and ‘ Please Betty ’ that, and drinking up our new milk as 
if he’d been a cat. I hate such beguiling ways.” 

I thought it was as well to let her exhaust herself in 
abusing the absent Holdsworth; if it was shabby and 
treacherous in me, I came in for my punishment directly. 

“ It’s a caution to a man how he goes about beguihng. 
Some men do it as easy and innocent as cooing doves. Don’t 
you be none of ’em, my lad. Not that you’ve got the gifts 
to do it, either; you’re no great shakes to look at, neither 
for figure nor yet for face ; and it would need be a deaf adder 
to be taken in wi’ your words, though there may be no 
great harm in ’em.” A lad of nineteen or twenty is not 
flattered by such an outspoken opinion even from the oldest 
and ughest of her sex ; and I was only too glad to change 
the subject by my repeated injunctions to keep Phillis’s secret. 
The end of our conversation was this speech of hers — 

89 


Cousin Phillis 

“You great gaupus, for all you’re called cousin o’ th’ 
minister — many a one is cursed wi’ fools for cousins — d’ye 
think I can’t see sense except through your spectacles ? I 
give you leave to cut out my tongue, and nail it up on th’ 
barn-door for a caution to magpies, if I let out on that poor 
wench, either to herself, or any one that is hers, as the 
Bible says. Now you’ve heard me speak Scripture language, 
perhaps you’ll be content, and leave me my kitchen to 
myself.” 

During all these days, from the 5th of July to the 17th, 
I must have forgotten what Holdsworth had said about 
sending cards. And yet I think I could not have quite 
forgotten ; but, once having told Phillis about his marriage, 
I must have looked upon the after- consequence of cards as 
of no importance. At any rate, they came upon me as a 
surprise at last. The penny-post reform, as people call it, 
had come into operation a short time before ; but the never- 
ending stream of notes and letters which seems now to flow in 
upon most households had not yet begun its course ; at least 
in those remote parts. There was a post-ofi&ce at Hornby ; 
and an old fellow, who stowed away the few letters in any 
or all his pockets, as it best suited him, was the letter-carrier 
to Heathbridge and the neighbourhood. I have often met 
him in the lanes thereabouts, and asked him for letters. 
Sometimes I have come upon him, sitting on the hedge-bank 
resting ; and he has begged me to read him an address, too 
illegible for his spectacled eyes to decipher. When I used 
to inquire if he had anything for me, or for Holdsworth (he 
was not particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that 
he got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), 
he would say he thought that he had, for such was his in- 
variable safe form of answer ; and would fumble in breast- 
pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last 
resource, in coat-tail pockets ; and at length try to comfort 
me, if I looked disappointed, by telling me, “ Hoo had missed 
this toime, but was sure to write to-morrow ; ” “ hoo ” repre- 
senting an imaginary sweetheart. 

90 


Cousin Phillis 

Sometimes I had seen the minister bring home a letter 
which he had found lying for him at the httle shop that was 
the post-office at Heathbridge, or from the grander estab- 
lishment at Hornby. Once or twice Josiah, the carter, 
remembered that the old letter-carrier had trusted him with 
an epistle to “ Measter,” as they had met in the lanes. I 
think it must have been about ten days after my arrival at 
the farm, and my talk to Phillis cutting bread-and-butter at 
the kitchen dresser, before the day on which the minister 
suddenly spoke at the dinner-table, and said — 

“ By-the-bye, I’ve got a letter in my pocket. Beach me 
my coat here, Phillis.” The weather was still sultry, and 
for coolness and ease the minister was sitting in his shirt- 
sleeves. “ I went to Heathbridge about the paper they had 
sent me, which spoils all the pens — and I called at the post- 
office, and found a letter for me, unpaid — and they did not 
hke to trust it to old Zekiel. Ay ! here it is ! Now we shall 
hear news of Holdsworth — I thought I’d keep it till we were 
aU together.” My heart seemed to stop beating, and I hung 
my head over my plate, not daring to look up. What would 
come of it now? .What was Phillis doing? How was she 
looking ? A moment of suspense — and then he spoke again. 
“Why? what’s this? Here are two visiting-tickets with 
his name on ; no writing at all. No ! it’s not his name on 
both. Mrs. Holdsworth. The young man has gone and 
got married.” I lifted my head at these words; I could not 
help looking just for one instant at Phillis. It seemed to 
me as if she had been keeping watch over my face and ways. 
Her face was brilliantly flushed; her eyes were dry and 
glittering ; but she did not speak ; her lips were set together, 
almost as if she was pinching them tight to prevent words 
or sounds coming out. Cousin Holman’s face expressed 
surprise and interest. 

“Well!” said she, “who’d ha’ thought it? He’s made 
quick work of his wooing and wedding. I’m sure I wish 
him happy. Let me see” — counting on her fingers — 
** October, November, December, January, February, March, 

91 


Cousin Phillis 

April, May, June, July — at least we’re at the 28th — it is 
nearly ten months after all, and reckon a month each way 
off” 

“ Did you know of this news before ? ” said the minister, 
turning sharp round on me, surprised, I suppose, at my 
silence— hardly suspicious, as yet. 

“ I knew — I had heard — something. It is to a French. 
Canadian young lady,” I went on, forcing myself to talk. 
“ Her name is Ventadour.” 

“ Lucille Ventadour ! ” said Phillis, in a sharp voice, out 
of tune. 

“ Then you knew, too ! ” exclaimed the minister. 

We both spoke at once. I said, “ I heard of the pro- 
bability of , and told Phillis.” She said, “ He is married 

to Lucille Ventadour, of French descent; one of a large 
family near St. Meurice ; am not I right ? ” I nodded. 
“ Paul told me — that is aU we know, is not it ? Did you 
see the Howsons, father, in Heathbridge ? ” and she forced 
herself to talk more than she had done for several days; 
asking many questions ; trying, as I could see, to keep the 
conversation off the one raw surface, on which to touch was 
agony. I had less self-command ; but I followed her lead. 
I was not so much absorbed in the conversation but what 
I could see that the minister was puzzled and uneasy; 
though he seconded Phillis’s efforts to prevent her mother 
from recurring to the great piece of news, and uttering con- 
tinual exclamations of wonder and surprise. But, with that 
one exception, we were all disturbed out of our natural 
equanimity, more or less. Every day, every hour, I was 
reproaching myself more and more for my blundering 
officiousness. If only I had held my foolish tongue for that 
one half-hour; if only I had not been in such impatient 
haste to do something to relieve pain ! I could have knocked 
my stupid head against the wall in my remorse. Yet all I 
could do now was to second the brave girl in her efforts to 
conceal her disappointment and keep her maidenly secret. 
But I thought that dinner would never, never come to an 

92 


Cousin Phillis 

end. I suffered for her, even more than for myself. Until 
now, everything which I had heard spoken in that happy 
household were simple words of true meaning. If we had 
aught to say, we said it ; and if any one preferred silence, 
nay, if all did so, there would have been no spasmodic, 
forced efforts to talk for the sake of talking, or to keep off 
intrusive thoughts or suspicions. 

At length we got up from our places, and prepared to 
disperse ; but two or three of us had lost our zest and 
interest in the daily labour. The minister stood looking out 
of the window in silence ; and, when he roused himself to go 
• out to the fields where his labourers were working, it was 
with a sigh ; and he tried to avert his troubled face, as he 
passed us on his way to the door. When he had left us, I 
caught sight of Phillis’s face, as, thinking herself unobserved, 
her countenance relaxed for a moment or two into sad, woe- 
ful weariness. She started into briskness again when her 
mother spoke, and hurried away to do some httle errand at 
her bidding. When we two were alone, cousin Holman 
recurred to Holdsworth’s marriage. She was one of those 
people who like to view an event from every side of pro- 
bability, or even possibility; and she had been cut short 
from indulging herself in this way during dinner. 

“ To think of Mr. Holdsworth’s being married ! I can’t 
get over it, Paul. Not but what he was a very nice young 
man ! I don’t like her name, though ; it sounds foreign. 
Say it again, my dear. I hope she’ll know how to take care 
of him, English fashion. He is not strong ; and, if she does 
not see that his things are well aired, I should be afraid of 
the old cough.” 

“ He always said he was stronger than he had ever been 
before, after that fever.” 

“ He might think so ; but I have my doubts. He was a 
very pleasant young man ; but he did not stand nursing very 
well. He got tired of being coddled, as he called it. I hope 
they’ll soon come back to England, and then he’ll have a 
chance for his health. I wonder, now, if she speaks English ; 

93 


Cousin Phillis 

but, to be sure, he can speak foreign tongues like anything, 
as I’ve heard the minister say.” 

And so we went on for some time, till she became drowsy 
over her knitting, on the sultry summer afternoon; and I 
stole away for a walk, for I wanted some sohtude in which 
to think over things, and, alas ! to hlame myself with 
poignant stabs of remorse. 

I lounged lazily as soon as I got to the wood. Here and 
there, the bubbhng, brawling brook circled round a great 
stone, or a root of an old tree, and made a pool ; otherwise 
it coursed brightly over the gravel and stones. I stood by 
one of these for more than half-an-hour, or, indeed, longer,, 
throwing bits of wood or pebbles into the water, and wonder- 
ing what I could do to remedy the present state of things. 
Of course all my meditation was of no use ; and, at length, 
the distant sound of the horn employed to tell the men far 
afield to leave off work warned me that it was six o’clock, 
and time for me to go home. Then I caught wafts of the 
loud-voiced singing of the evening psalm. As I was crossing 
the ash-field, I saw the minister at some distance talking to a 
man. I could not hear what they were saying ; but I saw an 
impatient or dissentient (I could not tell which) gesture on 
the part of the former, who walked quickly away, and was 
apparently absorbed in his thoughts; for, though he passed 
within twenty yards of me, as both our paths converged 
towards home, he took no notice of me. We passed the 
evening in a way which was even worse than dinner-time. 
The minister was silent, depressed, even irritable. Poor 
cousin Holman was utterly perplexed by this unusual frame 
of mind and temper in her husband; she was not well 
herself, and was suffering from the extreme and sultry heat, 
which made her less talkative than usual. Phillis, usually 
so reverently tender to her parents, so soft, so gentle, seemed 
now to take no notice of the unusual state of things, but 
talked to me — to any one — on indifferent subjects, regardless 
of her father’s gravity, of her mother’s piteous looks of 
bewilderment. But once my eyes fell upon her hands, 

94 


Cousin Phillis 

concealed under the table, and I could see the passionate, 
convulsive manner in which she laced and interlaced her 
fingers perpetually, wringing them together from time to 
time, wringing till the compressed flesh became perfectly 
white. What could I do ? I talked with her, as I saw she 
wished ; her grey eyes had dark circles round them, and a 
strange kind of dark hght in them; her cheeks were 
flushed, but her lips were white and wan. I wondered that 
others did not read these signs as clearly as I did. But 
perhaps they did ; I think, from what came afterwards, the 
minister did. 

Poor cousin Holman ! she worshipped her husband ; and 
the outward signs of his uneasiness were more patent to her 
simple heart than were her daughter’s. After a while, she 
could bear it no longer. She got up, and, softly laying her 
hand on his broad stooping shoulder, she said — 

“ What is the matter, minister ? Has anything gone 
wrong ? ” 

He started as if from a dream. Phillis hung her head, 
and caught her breath in terror at the answer she feared. 
But he, looking round with a sweeping glance, turned his 
broad, wise face up to his anxious wife, and forced a smile, 
and took her hand in a reassuring manner. 

“ I am blaming myself, dear. I have been overcome 
with anger this afternoon. I scarcely knew what I was 
doing, but I turned away Timothy Cooper. He has killed 
the Bibstone pippin at the corner of the orchard ; gone and 
piled the quicklime for the mortar for the new stable-wall 
against the trunk of the tree — stupid fellow ! killed the tree 
outright — and it loaded with apples ! ” 

“ And Eibstone pippins are so scarce,” said sympathetic 
cousin Holman. 

“ Ay 1 But Timothy is but a half-wit ; and he has a 
wife and children. He had often put me to it sore, with his 
slothful ways ; but I had laid it before the Lord, and striven 
to bear with him. But I will not stand it any longer ; it’s 
past my patience. And he has notice to find another place. 

95 


Cousin Phillis 

Wife, we won’t talk more about it.” He took her hand gently 
off his shoulder ; touched it with his lips ; but relapsed into a 
silence as profound, if not quite so morose in appearance, as 
before. I could not tell why, but this bit of talk between 
her father and mother seemed to take all the factitious 
spirits out of Phillis. She did not speak now, but looked 
out of the open casement at the calm large moon, slowly 
moving through the twilight sky. Once I thought her eyes 
were filling with tears ; hut, if so, she shook them off, and 
arose with alacrity when her mother, tired and dispirited, 
proposed to go to bed immediately after prayers. We all 
said good-night in our separate ways to the minister, who 
still sat at the table with the great Bible open before him, 
not much looking up at any of our salutations, but returning 
them kindly. But when I, last of all, was on the point of 
leaving the room, he said, still scarcely looking up — 

“ Paul, you will oblige me by staying here a few minutes. 
I would fain have some talk with you.” 

I knew what was coming, all in a moment. I carefully 
shut-to the door, put out my candle, and sat down to my 
fate. He seemed to find some difficulty in beginning, for, if 
I had not heard that he wanted to speak to me, I should 
never have guessed it, he seemed so much absorbed in 
reading a chapter to the end. Suddenly he lifted his head 
up and said — 

“It is about that friend of yours, Holdsworth ! Paul, 
have you any reason for thinking he has played tricks upon 
Phillis ? ” 

I saw that his eyes were blazing with such a fire of anger 
at the bare idea, that I lost all my presence of mind, and 
only repeated — 

“ Played tricks on Phillis ! ” 

“ Ay ! you know what I mean : made love to her, courted 
her, made her think that he loved her, and then gone away 
and left her. Put it as you will ; only give me an answer of 
some kind or another — a true answer, I mean — and don’t 
repeat my words, Paul.” 


96 


Cousin Phillis 

He was shaking all over, as he said this. I did not delay 
a moment in answering him — 

“ I do not beheve that Edward Holds worth ever played 
tricks on Phillis, ever made love to her ; he never, to my 
knowledge, made her believe that he loved her.” 

I stopped ; I wanted to nerve up my courage for a con- 
fession, yet I wished to save the secret of Phillis’s love for 
Holdsworth, as much as I could ; that secret which she had 
so striven to keep sacred and safe ; and I had need of some 
reflection, before I went on with what I had to say. 

He began again, before I had quite arranged my manner 
of speech. It was almost as if to himself — “ She is my only 
child ; my little daughter ! She is hardly out of childhood ; 
I have thought to gather her under my wings for years to 
come ; her mother and I would lay down our lives to keep 
her from harm and grief.” Then, raising his voice, and 
looking at me, he said, “ Something has gone wrong with 
the child ; and it seems to me to date from the time she 
heard of that marriage. It is hard to think that you may 
know more of her secret cares and sorrows than I do — but 
perhaps you do, Paul, perhaps you do — only, if it be not a 
sin, tell me what I can do to make her happy again ; teU me ! ” 
“ It will not do much good, I am afraid,” said I ; “ but I 
will own how wrong I did ; I don’t mean wrong in the way 
of sin, but in the way of judgment. Holdsworth told me 
just before he went that he loved Phillis, and hoped to make 
her his wife ; and I told her.” 

There ! it was out ; all my part in it, at least ; and I set 
my lips tight together, and waited for the words to come. I 
did not see his face ; I looked straight at the wall opposite ; 
but I heard him once begin to speak, and then turn over the 
leaves in the book before him. How awfully still that room 
was ! The air outside, how still it was ! The open window 
let in no rustle of leaves, no twitter or movement of birds — 
no sound whatever. The clock on the stairs — the minister’s 
hard breathing— was it to go on for ever ? Impatient beyond 
bearing at the deep quiet, I spoke again — 

97 


H 


Cousin Phillis 

“ I did it for the best, as I thought.” 

The minister shut the book to hastily, and stood up. 
Then I saw how angry he was. 

“ For the best, do you say ? It was best, was it, to go 
and tell a young girl what you never told a word of to her 
parents, who trusted you like a son of their own ? ” 

He began walking about, up and down the room, close 
under the open windows, churning up his bitter thoughts 
of me. 

To put such thoughts into the child’s head ! ” continued 
he ; “to spoil her peaceful maidenhood with talk about 
another man’s love; and such love, too ! ” — he spoke scornfully 
now — “ a love that is ready for any young woman ! Oh, the 
misery in my poor little daughter’s face to-day at dinner — 
the misery, Paul ! I thought you were one to be trusted — 
your father’s son too, to go and put such thoughts into the 
child’s mind; you two talking together about that man 
wishing to marry her I ” 

I could not help remembering the pinafore, the childish 
garment which Phillis wore so long, as if her parents were 
unaware of her progress towards womanhood. Just in the 
same way, the minister spoke and thought of her now, as a 
child, whose innocent pea-ce I had spoiled by vain and foolish 
talk. I knew that the truth was different, though I could 
hardly have told it now; but, indeed, I never thought of 
trying to tell ; it was far from my mind to add one iota to 
the sorrow which I had caused. The minister went on 
walking, occasionally stopping to move things on the table, 
or articles of furniture, in a sharp, impatient, meaningless 
way, then he began again — 

“ So young, so pure from the world ! how could you go 
and talk to such a child, raising hopes, exciting feelings — all 
to end thus ; and best so, even though I saw her poor piteous 
face look as it did ? I can’t forgive you, Paul ; it was more 
than wrong — it was wicked — to go and repeat that man’s 
words.” 

His back was now to the door ; and, in listening to his 

98 


Cousin Phillis 

low angry tones, he did not hear it slowly open, nor did he 
see Phillis, standing just within the room, until he turned 
round ; then he stood still. She must have been half un- 
dressed ; but she had covered herself with a dark winter 
cloak, which fell in long folds to her white, naked, noiseless 
feet. Her face was strangely pale ; her eyes heavy in the 
black circles round them. She came up to the table very 
slowly, and leant her hand upon it, saying mournfully — 

“ Father, you must not blame Paul. I could not help 
hearing a great deal of what you were saying. He did tell 
me, and perhaps it would have been wiser not, dear Paul ! 
But — oh, dear ! oh, dear ! I am so sick with shame ! He 
told me out of his kind heart, because he saw — that I was so 
very unhappy at his going away.” 

She hung her head, and leant more heavily than before 
on her supporting hand. 

“I don’t understand,” said her father; but he was 
beginning to understand. Phillis did not answer, till he 
asked her again. I could have struck him now for his 
cruelty ; but, then, I knew all. 

“ I loved him, father ! ” she said at length, raising her 
eyes to the minister’s face. 

“ Had he ever spoken of love to you ? Paul says not ! ” 

“ Never.” She let fall her eyes, and drooped more than 
ever. I almost thought she would fall. 

“ I could not have believed it,” said he, in a hard voice» 
yet sighing the moment he had spoken. A dead silence for 
a moment. “ Paul ! I was unjust to you. You deserved 
blame, but not all that I said.” Then again a silence. I 
thought I saw Phillis’s white lips moving, but it might be 
the flickering of the candle-light — a moth had flown in through 
the open casement, and was fluttering round the flame; I 
might have saved it, but I did not care to do so, my heart 
was too full of other things. At any rate, no sound was 
heard for long endless minutes. Then he said- “ Phillis ! 
did we not make you happy here ? Have we not loved you 
enough ? ” 


99 


Cousin Phillis 

She did not seem to understand the drift of this question ; 
she looked up as if bewildered, and her beautiful eyes dilated 
with a painful, tortured expression. He went on, without 
noticing the look on her face ; he did not see it, I am 
sure. 

“ And yet you would have left us, left your home, left 
your father and your mother, and gone away with this 
stranger, wandering over the world ! ** 

He suffered, too ; there were tones of pain in the voice 
in which he uttered this reproach. Probably, the father and 
daughter were never so far apart in their hves, so unsym- 
pathetic. Yet some new terror came over her, and it was 
to him she turned for help. A shadow came over her face, 
and she tottered towards her father ; falling down, her arms 
across his knees, and moaning out — 

“ Father, my head ! my head ! ” and then she slipped 
through his quick- enfolding arms, and lay on the ground 
at his feet. 

I shall never forget his sudden look of agony while I live ; 
never ! We raised her up ; her colour had strangely 
darkened; she was insensible. I ran through the back- 
kitchen to the yard-pump, and brought back water. The 
minister had her on his knees, her head against his breast, 
almost as though she were a sleeping child. He was trying 
to rise up with his poor precious burden ; but the momentary 
terror had robbed the strong man of his strength, and he 
sank back in his chair with sobbing breath. 

“ She is not dead, Paul ! is she ? ” he whispered, hoarse, 
as I came near him. 

I, too, could not speak, but I pointed to the quivering 
of the muscles round her mouth. Just then cousin Holman, 
attracted by some unwonted sound, came down. I remember 
I was surprised at the time at her presence of mind: she 
seemed to know so much better what to do than the minister, 
in the midst of the sick affright which blanched her counte- 
nance, and made her tremble all over. I think now that 
it was the recollection of what had gone before; the 

lOO 


Cousin Phillis 

miserable thought that possibly his words had brought on 
this attack, whatever it might be, that so unmanned the 
minister; We carried her upstairs ; and, while the women 
were putting her to bed, still unconscious, still slightly 
convulsed, I slipped out, and saddled one of the horses, and 
rode as fast as the heavy-trotting beast could go, to Hornby, 
to find the doctor there, and bring him back. He was out ; 
might be detained the whole night. I remember saying, 
“ God help us all ! ” as I sate on my horse, under the 
window, through which the apprentice’s head had appeared 
to answer my furious tugs at the night-bell. He was a 
good-natured fellow. He said — 

“ He may be home in half-an-hour, there’s no knowing ; 
but I dare say he will. I’ll send him out to the Hope Farm 
directly he comes in. It’s that good-looking young woman, 
Holman’s daughter, that’s ill, isn’t it ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ It would be a pity if she was to go. She’s an only 
child, isn’t she? I’ll get up, and smoke a pipe in the 
surgery, ready for the governor’s coming home. I might go 
to sleep if I went to bed again.” 

“ Thank you, you’re a good fellow ! ” and I rode hack 
almost as quickly as I came. 

It was a brain-fever. The doctor said so, when he came 
in the early summer morning. I believe we had come to 
know the nature of the illness in the night-watches that had 
gone before. As to hope of ultimate recovery, or even evil 
prophecy of the probable end, the cautious doctor would be 
entrapped into neither. He gave his directions, and promised 
to come again : so soon, that this one thing showed his 
opinion of the gravity of the case. 

By God’s mercy, she recovered ; but it was a long, weary 
time first. According to previously made plans, I was to 
have gone home at the beginning of August. But all such 
ideas were put aside now, without a word being spoken. I 
really think that I was necessary in the house, and especially 
necessary to the minister at this time ; my father was the 

lOI 


Cousin Phillis 

last man in the world, under such circumstances, to expect 
me home. 

I say, I think I was necessary in the house. Every 
person (I had almost said every creature, for all the dumb 
beasts seemed to know and love Phillis) about the place 
went grieving and sad, as though a cloud was over the sun. 
They did their work, each striving to steer clear of the 
temptation to eye-service, in fulfilment of the trust reposed 
in them by the minister. For, the day after Phillis had been 
taken ill, he had called all the men employed on the farm 
into the empty barn ; and there he had entreated their 
prayers for his only child ; and, then and there, he had told 
them of his present incapacity for thought about any other 
thing in this world but his little daughter, lying nigh unto 
death, and he had asked them to go on with their daily 
labours as best they could, without his direction. So, as 
I say, these honest men did their work to the best of their 
ability ; but they slouched along with sad and careful faces, 
coming one by one in the dim mornings to ask news of the 
sorrow thao overshadowed the house, and receiving Betty’s 
intellige' ce, al ways rather darkened by passing through her 
mind, with slow shakes of the head, and a dull wistfulness 
of sympathy. But, poor fellows, they were hardly fit to be 
trusted with hasty messages ; and here my poor services 
came in. One time, I was to ride hard to Sir William 
Bentinck’s, and petition for ice out of his ice-house, to put 
on Phillis’s head. Another, it was to Eltham I must go, by 
train, horse, anyhow, and bid the doctor there come for a 
consultation ; for fresh symptoms had appeared, which Mr. 
Brown, of Hornby, considered unfavourable. Many an hour 
have I sate on the window-seat, half-way up the stairs, close 
by the old clock, listening in the hot stillness of the house 
for the sounds in the sick-room. The minister and I met 
often, but spoke together seldom. He looked so old — so 
old! He shared the nursing with his wife; the strength 
that was needed seemed to be given to them both in that 
day. They required no one else about their child. Every 

102 


Cousin Phillis 

office about her was sacred to them ; even Betty only went 
into the room for the most necessary purposes. Once I saw 
Philhs through the open door ; her pretty golden hair had 
been cut off long before ; her head was covered with wet 
cloths, and she was moving it backwards and forwards on 
the pillow, with weary, never-ending motion, her poor eyes 
shut, trying in the old-accustomed way to croon out a hymn 
tune, but perpetually breaking it up into moans of pain. 
Her mother sate by her, tearless, changing the cloths upon 
her head with patient solicitude. I did not see the minister 
at first ; but there he was, in a dark comer, down upon his 
knees, his hands clasped together in passionate prayer. 
Then the door shut, and I saw no more. 

One day he was wanted; and I had to summon him. 
Brother Eobinson and another minister, hearing of his 
“trial”, had come to see him. I told him this upon the 
stair-landing in a whisper. He was strangely troubled. 

“ They will want me to lay bare my heart. I cannot do it. 
Paul, stay with me ! They mean well ; but as for spiritual help 
at such a time — it is God only, God only, who can give it.” 

So I went in with him. They were two ministers from 
the neighbourhood ; both older than Ebenezer Holman, but 
evidently inferior to him in education and worldly position. 
I thought they looked at me as if I were an intmder ; but, 
remembering the minister’s words, I held my ground, and 
took up one of poor Phillis’s books (of which I could not 
read a word) to have an ostensible occupation. Presently 
I was asked to “ engage in prayer ” ; and we all knelt down. 
Brother Eobinson “ leading,” and quoting largely, as I re- 
member, from the Book of Job. He seemed to take for his 
text, if texts are ever taken for prayers, “ Behold, thou hast 
instructed many ; but now it is come upon thee, and thou 
faintest ; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.” When we 
others rose up, the minister continued for some minutes on 
his knees. Then he too got up, and stood facing us, for a 
moment, before we all sate down in conclave. After a pause 
Eobinson began — 

103 


Cousin Phillis 

We grieve for you, Brother Holman, for your trouble is 
great. But we would fain have you remember you are as a 
light set on a hill ; and the congregations are looking at you 
with watchful eyes. We have been talking as we came along 
on the two duties required of you in this strait. Brother 
Hodgson and me. And we have resolved to exhort you on 
these two points. First, God has given you the opportunity 
of showing forth an example of resignation.” Poor Mr. 
Holman visibly winced at this word. I could fancy how he 
had tossed aside such brotherly preachings in his happier 
moments; but now his whole system was unstrung, and 
“ resignation ” seemed a term which presupposed that the 
dreaded misery of losing Phillis was inevitable. But good, 
stupid Mr. Eobinson went on. “We hear on all sides that 
there are scarce any hopes of your child’s recovery ; and it 
may be well to bring you to mind of Abraham ; and how he 
was willing to kill his only child when the Lord commanded. 
Take example by him. Brother Holman. Let us hear you 
say, ‘ The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed 
be the name of the Lord ! ’ ” 

There was a pause of expectancy. I verily believe the 
minister tried to feel it ; but he could not. Heart of flesh 
was too strong. Heart of stone he had not. 

“ I will say it to my God, when He gives me strength — 
when the day comes,” he spoke at last. 

The other two looked at each other, and shook their 
heads. I think the reluctance to answer as they wished was 
not quite unexpected. The minister went on : “ There are 
hopes yet,” he said, as if to himself. “ God has given me a 
great heart for hoping, and I will not look forward beyond 
the hour.” Then, turning more to them, and speaking louder, 
he added ; “ Brethren, God will strengthen me when the 
time comes, when such resignation as you speak of is needed. 
Till then I cannot feel it ; and what I do not feel I will not 
express, using words as if they were a charm.” He was 
getting chafed, I could see. 

He had rather put them out by these speeches of his ; but 
104 


Cousin Phillis 

after a short time and some more shakes of the head, Eobin- 
son began again — 

“ Secondly, we would have you listen to the voice of the 
rod, and ask yourself for what sins this trial has been laid 
upon you : whether you may not have been too much given 
up to your farm and your cattle ; whether this world’s learn- 
ing has not puffed you up to vain conceit and neglect of the 
things of God ; whether you have not made an idol of your 
daughter ? ” 

“ I cannot answer — I will not answer ! ” exclaimed the 
minister. “ My sins I confess to God. But if they were 
scarlet — and they are so in His sight,” he added humbly — 
“ I hold with Christ that afflictions are not sent by God in 
wrath as penalties for sin.” 

“Is that orthodox. Brother Eobinson? ” asked the third 
minister, in a deferential tone of inquiry. 

Despite the minister’s injunction not to leave him, I 
thought matters were getting so serious that a httle homely 
interruption would be more to the purpose than my continued 
presence, and I went round to the kitchen to ask for Betty’s 
help. 

“ ’Od rot ’em ! ” said she ; “ they’re always a-coming at 
inconvenient times; and they have such hearty appetites, 
they’ll make nothing of what would have served master and 
you since our poor lass has been ill. I’ve but a bit of cold 
beef in th’ house ; but I’ll do some ham and eggs, and that ’ll 
rout ’em from worrying the minister. They’re a deal quieter 
after they’ve had their victual. Last time as old Eobinson 
came, he was very reprehensible upon master’s learning, 
which he couldn’t compass to save his life, so he needn’t 
have been afeared of that temptation, and used words long 
enough to have knocked a body down; but after me and 
missus had given him his fill of victual, and he’d had some 
good ale and a pipe, he spoke just like any other man, and 
could crack a joke with me.” 

Their visit was the only break in the long weary days and 
nights. I do not mean that no other inquiries were made. 

105 


Cousin Phillis 

I believe that all the neighbours hung about the place daily, 
till they could learn from some out- comer how Phillis Hol- 
man was. But they knew better than to come up to the 
house ; for the August weather was so hot that every door 
and window was kept constantly open, and the least sound 
outside penetrated all through. I am sure the cocks and 
hens had a sad time of it ; for Betty drove them all into an 
empty bam, and kept them fastened up in the dark for several 
days, with very little effect as regarded their crowing and 
clacking. At length came a sleep which was the crisis, and 
from which she wakened up with a new faint life. Her 
slumber had lasted many, many hours. We scarcely dared 
to breathe or move during the time ; we had striven to hope 
so long, that we were sick at heart, and durst not trust in 
the favourable signs : the even breathing, the moistened skin, 
the slight return of delicate colour into the pale, wan lips. 
I recollect stealing out that evening in the dusk, and wander- 
ing down the grassy lane, under the shadow of the over-arch- 
ing elms to the little bridge at the foot of the hill, where the 
lane to the Hope Farm joined another road to Hornby. On 
the low parapet of that bridge I found Timothy Cooper, the 
stupid, half-witted labourer, sitting, idly throwing bits of 
mortar into the brook below. He just looked up at me as I 
came near, but gave me no greeting, either by word or gesture. 
He had generally made some sign of recognition to me ; but 
this time I thought he was sullen at being dismissed. Never- 
theless, I felt as if it would be a relief to talk a little to some 
one, and I sate down by him. While I was thinking how to 
begin, he yawned wearily. 

“ You are tired, Tim,” said I. 

“ Ay,” said he. “ But I reckon I may go home now.” 

“ Have you been sitting here long ? ” 

“ Welly all day long. Leastways sin’ seven i’ th’ morn- 
ing.” 

“ Why, what in the world have you been doing ? ” 

“ Nought.” 

** Why have you been sitting here, then ? ” 


Cousin Phillis 

T’ keep carts off.” He was up now, stretching himself, 
and shaking his lubberly limbs. 

“ Carts ! what carts ? ” 

“ Carts as might ha’ wakened yon wench ! It’s Hornby 
market-day. I reckon yo’re no better nor a half-wit your- 
sel’.” He cocked his eye at me, as if he were gauging my 
intellect. 

“And have you been sitting here all day to keep the 
lane quiet? ” 

“ Ay. I’ve nought else to do. Th’ minister has turned 
me adrift. Have yo’ heard how th’ lass is faring to-night ? ” 

“They hope she’ll waken better for this long sleep. 
Good-night to you, and God bless you, Timothy ! ” said I. 

He scarcely took any notice of my words, as he lumbered 
across a stile that led to his cottage. Presently, I went home 
to the farm. Phillis had stirred, had spoken two or three 
faint words. Her mother was with her, dropping nourish- 
ment into her scarce conscious mouth. The rest of the 
households were summoned to evening prayer, for the first 
time for many days. It was a return to the daily habits of 
happiness and health. But in these silent days our very 
lives had been an unspoken prayer. Now, we met in the 
house-place, and looked at each other with strange recognition 
of the thankfulness on all our faces. We knelt down; we 
waited for the minister’s voice. He did not begin as usual. 
He could not; he was choking. Presently we heard the 
strong man’s sob. Then old John turned round on his 
knees, and said — 

“ Minister, I reckon we have blessed the Lord wi’ all our 
souls, though we’ve ne’er talked about it ; and maybe He’ll 
not need spoken words this night. God bless us all, and 
keep our Philhs safe from harm ! Amen.” 

Old John’s impromptu prayer was all we had that night. 

“ Our Phillis,” as he had called her, grew better day by 
day from that time. Not quickly; I sometimes grew de- 
sponding, and feared that she would never be what she had 
been before ; no more she has, in some ways. 

107 


Cousin Phillis 

I seized an early opportunity to tell the minister about 
Timothy Cooper’s unsolicited watch on the bridge during the 
long summer’s day. 

“ God forgive me ! ” said the minister. “ I have been too 
proud in my own conceit. The first steps I take out of this 
house shall be to Cooper’s cottage.” 

I need harily say Timothy was reinstated in his place on 
the farm ; and I have often since admired the patience with 
which his master tried to teach him how to do the easy work 
which was henceforward carefully adjusted to his capacity. 

Phillis was carried downstairs, and lay for hour after 
hour quite silent on the great sofa, drawn up under the 
windows of the house-place. She seemed always the same — 
gentle, quiet, and sad. Her energy did not return with her 
bodily strength. It was sometimes pitiful to see her parents’ 
vain endeavours to rouse her to interest. One day the 
minister brought her a set of blue ribbons, reminding her 
with a tender smile of a former conversation, in which she 
had owned to a love of such feminine vanities. She spoke 
gratefully to him ; but, when he was gone, she laid them on 
one side, and languidly shut her eyes. Another time I saw 
her mother bring her the Latin and Italian books that she 
had been so fond of before her illness — or, rather, before 
Holdsworth had gone away. That was worst of all. She 
turned her face to the wall, and cried as soon as her mother’s 
back was turned. Betty was laying the cloth for the early 
dinner. Her sharp eyes saw the state of the case. 

“ Now, Phillis ! said she, coming up to the sofa ; “ we 
ha’ done a’ we can for you, and th’ doctors has done a’ they 
can for you, and I think the Lord has done a’ He can for 
you, and more than you deserve, too, if you don’t do some- 
thing for yourself. If I were you, I’d rise up and snuff the 
moon, sooner than break your father’s and your mother’s 
hearts wi’ watching and waiting, till it pleases you to fight 
your own way back to cheerfulness. There, I never favoured 
long preachings, and I’ve said my say.” 

A day or two after, Phillis asked me, when we were alone, 
io8 


Cousin Phillis 

if I thought my father and mother would allow her to go and 
stay with them for a couple of months. She blushed a httle, 
as she faltered out her wish for change of thought and scene. 

“ Only for a short time, Paul ! Then — we will go back to 
the peace of the old days. I know we shall ; I can, and I 
wiUl’* 


LOIS THE WITCH 


CHAPTER I 

In the year 1691, Lois Barclay stood on a little wooden pier, 
steadying herself on the stable land, in much the same 
manner as, eight or nine weeks ago, she had tried to steady 
herself on the deck of the rocking ship which had carried 
her across from Old to New England. It seemed as strange 
now to be on solid earth as it had been, not long ago, to be 
rocked by the sea both by day and by night ; and the aspect 
of the land was equally strange. The forests which showed 
in the distance all around, and which, in truth, were not 
very far from the wooden houses forming the town of Boston, 
were of different shades of green, and different, too, in shape 
of outline to those which Lois Barclay knew well in her old 
home in Warwickshire. Her heart sank a little as she stood 
alone, waiting for the captain of the good ship Redemfiion, 
the kind, rough old sailor, who was her only known friend 
in this unknown continent. Captain Holdemesse was busy, 
however, as she saw, and it would probably be some time 
before he would be ready to attend to her ; so Lois sat down 
on one of the casks that lay about, and wrapped her grey 
duffle cloak tight around her, and sheltered herself under her 
hood, as well as might be, from the piercing wind, which 
seemed to follow those whom it had tyrannised over at sea 
with a dogged wish of still tormenting them on land. Very 
patiently did Lois sit there, although she was weary, and 
shivering with cold ; for the day was severe for May, and 

no 


Lois the Witch 

the Rederrvptionf with store of necessaries and comforts for 
the Puritan colonists of New England, was the earliest ship 
that had ventured across the seas. 

How could Lois help thinking of the past, and speculat- 
ing on the future, as she sat on Boston pier, at this breathing- 
time of her life? In the dim sea mist which she gazed 
upon with aching eyes (filled, against her will, with tears, 
from time to time), there rose the little village church of 
Barford (not three miles from Warwick — you may see it 
yet), where her father had preached ever since 1661 , long 
before she was born. He and her mother both lay dead in 
Barford churchyard; and the old low grey church could 
hardly come before her vision without her seeing the old 
parsonage too, the cottage covered with Austrian roses and 
yellow jessamine, where she had been born, sole Child of 
parents already long past the prime of youth. She saw the 
path, not a hundred yards long, from the parsonage to the 
vestry door : that path which her father trod daily ; for 
the vestry was his study, and the sanctum where he pored 
over the ponderous tomes of the Fathers, and compared 
their precepts with those of the authorities of the Anglican 
Church of that day — the day of the later Stuarts ; for Barford 
Parsonage, at that time, scarcely exceeded in size and dignity 
the cottages by which it was surrounded : it only contained 
three rooms on a floor, and was but two storeys high. On 
the first or ground-floor, were the parlour, kitchen, and back- 
or working-kitchen ; upstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Barclay’s room, 
that belonging to Lois, and the maid-servant’s room. If a 
guest came, Lois left her own chamber, and shared old 
Clemence’s bed. But those days were over. Never more 
should Lois see father or mother on earth ; they slept, calm 
and still, in Barford churchyard, careless of what became of 
their orphan child, as far as earthly manifestations of care 
or love went. And Clemence lay there too, bound down 
in her grassy bed by withes of the briar-rose, which Lois 
had trained over those three precious graves before leaving 
England for ever. 


Ill 


Lois the Witch 


There were some who would fain have kept her there ; 
one who swore in his heart a great oath unto the Lord that 
he would seek her, sooner or later, if she was still upon the 
earth. But he was the rich heir and only son of the Miller 
Lucy, whose mill stood by the Avon side in the grassy Bar- 
ford meadows ; and his father looked higher for him than the 
penniless daughter of Parson Barclay (so low were clergy- 
men esteemed in those days ! ) ; and the very suspicion of 
Hugh Lucy’s attachment to Lois Barclay made his parents 
think it more prudent not to offer the orphan a home, 
although none other of the parishioners had the means, even 
if they had the will, to do so. 

So Lois swallowed her tears down till the time came for 
crying, and acted upon her mother’s words — 

“ Lois, thy father is dead of this terrible fever, and I am 
dying. Nay, it is so ; though I am easier from pain for these 
few hours, the Lord be praised! The cruel men of the 
Commonwealth have left thee very friendless. Thy father’s 
only brother was shot down at Edgehill. I, too, have a 
brother, though thou hast never heard me speak of him, for 
he was a schismatic ; and thy father and me had words, and 
he left for that new country beyond the seas, without ever 
saying farewell to us. But Ealph was a kind lad until he 
took up these new-fangled notions ; and for the old days’ 
sake he will take thee in, and love thee as a child, and place 
thee among his children. Blood is thicker than water. 
Write to him as soon as I am gone — for, Lois, I am going ; 
and I bless the Lord that has letten me join my husband 
again so soon.” Such was the selfishness of conjugal love ; 
she thought little of Lois’s desolation in comparison with her 
rejoicing over her speedy reunion with her dead husband! 
“ Write to thine uncle, Ealph Hickson, Salem, New England 
(put it down, child, on thy tablets), and say that I, Henrietta 
Barclay, charge him, for the sake of all he holds dear in 
heaven or on earth — for his salvation’s sake, as well as for 
the sake of the old home at Lester Bridge — for the sake of 
the father and mother that gave us birth, as well as for the 


12 


Lois the Witch 

sake of the six little children who lie dead between him and 
1^6 — ^^that he take thee into his home as if thou wert his own 
flesh and blood, as indeed thou art. He has a wife and 
children of his own, and no one need fear having thee, my 
Lois, my darling, my baby, among his household. O Lois, 
would that thou wert dying with me ! The thought of thee 
makes death sore ! ” Lois comforted her mother more than 
herself, poor child, by promises to obey her dying wishes 
to the letter, and by expressing hopes she dared not feel of 
her uncle’s kindness. 

“ Promise me ” — the dying woman’s breath came harder 
and harder — “ that thou wilt go at once. The money our 
goods will bring — the letter thy father wrote to Captain 
Holdemesse, his old schoolfellow — thou knowest all T would 
say — my Lois, God bless thee ! ” 

Solemnly did Lois promise; strictly she kept her word. 
It was all the more easy, for Hugh Lucy met her, and told 
her, in one great burst of love, of his passionate attachment, 
his vehement struggles with his father, his impotence at 
present, his hopes and resolves for the future. And, inter- 
mingled with all this, came such outrageous threats and 
expressions of uncontrolled vehemence, that Lois felt that in 
Barford she must not linger to be a cause of desperate 
quarrel between father and son, while her absence might 
soften down matters, so that either the rich old miller might 
relent, or — and her heart ached to think of the other possi- 
bility — Hugh’s love might cool, and the dear playfellow of 
her childhood learn to forget. If not — if Hugh were to be 
trusted in one tithe of what he said — God might permit him 
to fulfil his resolve of coming to seek her out, before many 
years were over. It was all in God’s hands ; and that was 
best, thought Lois Barclay. 

She was aroused out of her trance of recollections by 
Captain Holdemesse, who, having done all that was neces- 
sary in the way of orders and directions to his mate, now 
came up to her, and, praising her for her quiet patience, told 
her that he would now taka her to the Widow Smith’s, a 

113 % 


Lois the Witch 

decent kind of house, where he and many other sailors of 
the better order were in the habit of lodging during their 
stay on the New England shores. Widow Smith, he said, 
had a parlour for herself and her daughters, in which Lois 
might sit, while he went about the business that, as he had 
told her, would detain . him in Boston for a day or two, 
before he could accompany her to her uncle’s at Salem. All 
this had been to a certain degree arranged on ship-board; 
but Captain Holdemesse, for want of anything else that he 
could think of to talk about, recapitulated it, as he and Lois 
walked along. It was his way of showing sympathy with 
the emotion that made her grey eyes full of tears, as she 
started up from the pier at the sound of his voice. In his 
heart he said, “ Poor wench ! poor wench ! it’s a strange 
land to her, and they are all strange folks, and, I reckon, she 
will be feeling desolate. I’ll try and cheer her up.” So he 
talked on about hard facts, connected with the life that lay 
before her, until they reached Widow Smith’s ; and perhaps 
Lois was more brightened by this style of conversation, and 
the new ideas it presented to her, than she would have been 
by the tenderest woman’s sympathy. 

“ They are a queer set, these New Englanders,” said 
Captain Holdemesse. “They are rare chaps for praying; 
down on their knees at every turn of their life. Folk are 
none so busy in a new country, else they would have to 
pray like me, with a ‘ Yo-hoy ! ’ on each side of my prayer, 
and a rope cutting like fire through my hand. Yon pilot was 
for calling us all to thanksgiving for a good voyage, and 
lucky escape from the pirates ; but I said I always put up 
my thanks on dry land, after I had got my ship into harbour. 
The French colonists, too, are vowing vengeance for the 
expedition against Canada, and the people here are raging 
like heathens — at least, as like as godly folk can be — for the 
loss of their charter. All that is the news the pilot told me ; 
for, for all he wanted us to be thanksgiving instead of casting 
the lead, he was as down in the mouth as could be about the 
state of the country. But here we are at Widow Smith’s ! 

1 14 


Lois the Witch 

Now, cheer up, and show the godly a pretty smiling 
Warwickshire lass ! ” 

Anybody would have smiled at Widow Smith’s greeting. 
She was a comely, motherly woman, dressed in the primmest 
fashion in vogue twenty years before in England, among the 
class to which she belonged. But, somehow, her pleasant 
face gave the he to her dress ; were it as brown and sober- 
coloured as could be, folk remembered it bright and cheerful, 
because it was a part of Widow Smith herself. 

She kissed Lois on both cheeks, before she rightly under- 
stood who the stranger maiden was, only because she was a 
stranger and looked sad and forlorn ; and then she kissed 
her again, because Captain Holdemesse commended her to 
the widow’s good offices. And so she led Lois by the hand 
into her rough, substantial log-house, over the door of which 
hung a great bough of a tree, by way of sign of entertain- 
ment for man and horse. Yet not all men were received by 
Widow Smith. To some she could be as cold and reserved 
as need be, deaf to all inquiries save one — where else they 
could find accommodation ? To this question she would give 
a ready answer, and speed the unwelcome guest on his way. 
Widow Smith was guided in these matters by instinct : one 
glance at a man’s face told her whether or not she chose to 
have him as an inmate of the same house as her daughters ; 
and her promptness of decision in these matters gave her 
manner a kind of authority which no one liked to disobey, 
especially as she had stalwart neighbours within call to back 
her, if her assumed deafness in the first instance, and her 
voice and gesture in the second, were not enough to give the 
would-be guest his dismissal. Widow Smith chose her 
customers merely by their physical aspect ; not one whit 
with regard to their apparent worldly circumstances. Those 
who had been staying at her house once always came again ; 
for she had the knack of making every one beneath her roof 
comfortable and at his ease. Her daughters. Prudence and 
Hester, had somewhat of their mother’s gifts, but not in 
such perfection. They reasoned a little upon a stranger’s 

”5 


Lois the Witch 

appearance, instead of knowing at the first moment whether 
they liked him or no ; they noticed the indications of his 
clothes, the quality and cut thereof, as telling somewhat of 
his station in society ; they were more reserved ; they hesi- 
tated more than their mother; they had not her prompt 
authority, her happy power. Their bread was not so light ; 
their cream went sometimes to sleep, when it should have 
been turning into butter ; their hams were not always “ just 
like the hams of the old country ” ; as their mother’s were 
invariably pronounced to be — yet they were good, orderly, 
kindly girls, and rose and greeted Lois with a friendly shake 
of the hand, as their mother, with her arm round the 
stranger’s waist, led her into the private room which she 
called her parlour. The aspect of this room was strange in 
the English girl’s eyes. The logs of which the house was 
built showed here and there through the mud-plaster, 
although before both plaster and logs were hung the skins 
of many curious animals — skins presented to the widow by 
many a trader of her acquaintance, just as her sailor-guests 
brought her another description of gifts — shells, strings of 
wampum-beads, sea-birds’ eggs, and presents from the old 
country. The room was more like a small museum of 
natural history of these days than a parlour ; and it had a 
strange, peculiar, but not unpleasant smell about it, neutra- 
lised in some degree by the smoke from the enormous trunk 
of pinewood which smouldered on the hearth. 

The instant their mother told them that Captain Holder- 
nesse was in the outer room, the girls began putting away 
their spinning-wheel and knitting needles, and preparing for 
a meal of some kind; what meal, Lois, sitting there and 
unconsciously watching, could hardly tell. First, dough was 
set to rise for cakes ; then came out of a corner- cupboard — 
a present from England — an enormous square bottle of 
a cordial called Gold-Wasser; next, a mill for grinding 
chocolate — a rare, unusual treat anywhere at that time ; 
then a great Cheshire cheese. Three venison-steaks were 
cut ready for broiling, fat cold pork sliced up and treacle 

ii6 


' Lois the Witch 

poured over it ; a great pie, something like a mince-pie, but 
which the daughters spoke of with honour as the “ punken- 
! pie,” fresh and salt-fish brandered, oysters cooked in various 
ways. Lois wondered where would be the end of the pro- 
visions for hospitably receiving the strangers from the old 
country. At length everything was placed on the table, the 
hot food smoking ; but all was cool, not to say cold, before 
Elder Hawkins (an old neighbour of much repute and stand- 
ing, who had been invited in by Widow Smith to hear the 
news) had finished his grace, into which was embodied 
thanksgiving for the past, and prayers for the future, lives 
of every individual present, adapted to their several cases, 
as far as the elder could guess at them from appearances. 
This grace might not have ended so soon as it did, had it 
not been for the somewhat impatient drumming of his knife- 
handle on the table, with which Captain Holdernesse accom- 
panied the latter half of the elder’s words. 

When they first sat down to their meal, all were too 
hungry for much talking ; but, as their appetites diminished, 
their curiosity increased, and there was much to be told and 
heard on both sides. With all the English intelligence Lois 
I was, of course, well acquainted ; but she listened with natural 
I attention to all that was said about the new country, and the 
new people among whom she had come to live. Her father 
had been a Jacobite, as the adherents of the Stuarts were 
beginning at this time to be called. His father, again, had 
been a follower of Archbishop Laud ; so Lois had hitherto 
heard little of the conversation, and seen httle of the ways 
of the Puritans. Elder Hawkins was one of the strictest of 
the strict, and evidently his presence kept the two daughters 
of the house considerably in awe. But the widow herself 
was a privileged person ; her known goodness of heart (the 
effects of which had been experienced by many) gave her 
the liberty of speech which was tacitly denied to many, 
under penalty of being esteemed ungodly, if they infringed 
certain conventional limits. And Captain Holdernesse and 
his mate spoke out their minds, let who would be present. 

117 


Lois the Witch 

So that, on this first landing in New England, Lois was, as 
it were, gently let down into the midst of the Puritan pecu- 
liarities ; and yet they were sufficient to make her feel very 
lonely and strange. 

The first subject of conversation was the present state 
of the colony — Lois soon found out that, although at the 
beginning she was not a little perplexed by the frequent 
reference to names of places which she naturally associated 
with the old country. Widow Smith was speaking : “In 
county of Essex the folk are ordered to keep four scouts, 
or companies of minute-men ; six persons in each company ; 
to be on the look-out for the wild Indians, who are for ever 
stirring about in the woods, stealthy brutes as they are ! I 
am sure, I got such a fright the first harvest-time after I came 
over to New England, I go on dreaming, now near twenty 
years after Lothrop’s business, of painted Indians, with their 
shaven scalps and their war-streaks, lurking behind the trees, 
and coming nearer and nearer with their noiseless steps.” 

“ Yes,” broke in one of her daughters ; “ and, mother, 
don’t you remember how Hannah Benson told us how her 
husband had cut down every tree near his house at Deer- 
brook, in order that no one might come near him, under 
cover ; and how one evening she was a-sitting in the twilight, 
when all her family were gone to bed, and her husband gone 
off to Plymouth on business, and she saw a log of wood, 
just like a trunk of a felled tree, lying in the shadow, and 
thought nothing of it, till, on looking again a while after, she 
fancied it was come a bit nearer to the house ; and how her 
heart turned sick with fright ; and how she dared not stir at 
first, but shut her eyes while she counted a hundred, and 
looked again, and the shadow was deeper, but she could see 
that the log was nearer ; so she ran in and bolted the door, 
and went up to where her eldest lad lay. It was Elijah, and 
he was but sixteen then ; but he rose up at his mother’s 
words, and took his father’s long duck-gun down ; and he 
tried the loading, and spoke for the first time to put up a 
prayer that God would give his aim good guidance, and 

ii8 


Lois the Witch 

went to a window that gave a view upon the side where the 
log lay, and fired ; and no one dared to look what came of it ; 
but all the household read the Scriptures, and prayed the 
whole night long; till morning came and showed a long 
stream of blood lying on the grass close by the log — which 
the full sunlight showed to be no log at all, but just a Ked 
Indian covered with bark, and painted most skilfully, with 
his war-knife by his side.” 

All were breathless with listening ; though to most the 
story, or others like it, were familiar. Then another took up 
the tale of horror : — 

“And the pirates have been down at Marblehead, since you 
were here. Captain Holdemesse. ’Twas only the last winter 
they landed — French Papist pirates ; and the people kept 
close within their houses, for they knew not what would 
come of it ; and they dragged folk ashore. There was one 
woman among those folk — prisoners from some vessel, 
doubtless — and the pirates took them by force to the inland 
marsh ; and the Marblehead folk kept still and quiet, every 
gun loaded, and every ear on the watch, for who knew but 
what the wild sea-robbers might take a turn on land next ; 
and, in the dead of the night, they heard a woman’s loud 
and pitiful outcry from the marsh, ‘ Lord Jesu ! have mercy 
on me ! Save me from the power of man, O Lord Jesu ! ’ 
And the blood of all who heard the cry ran cold with terror ; 
till old Nance Hickson, who had been stone-deaf and bed- 
ridden for years, stood up in the midst of the folk all 
gathered together in her grandson’s house, and said, that, as 
they, the dwellers in Marblehead, had not had brave hearts 
or faith enough to go and succour the helpless, that cry of a 
dying woman should be in their ears, and in their children’s 
ears, till the end of the world. And Nance dropped down 
dead as soon as she had made an end of speaking, and the 
pirates set sail from Marblehead at morning dawn ; but the 
folk there hear the cry still, shrill and pitiful, from the waste 
marshes, * Lord Jesu ! have mercy on me 1 Save me from 
the power of man, 0 Lord Jesu 1 ’ ” 

119 


Lois the Witch 

“ And, by token,” said Elder Hawkins’s deep bass voice, 
speaking with the strong nasal twang of the Puritans (who, 
says Butler, 

“ Blasphemed custard through the nose ”) 

“ godly Mr. Noyes ordained a fast at Marblehead, and 
preached a soul-stirring discourse on the words, ‘ Inasmuch 
as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, my brethen, 
ye did it not unto me.’ But it has been borne in upon me at 
times, whether the whole vision of the pirates and the cry of 
the woman was not a device of Satan’s to sift the Marble- 
head folk, and see what fruit their doctrine bore, and so to con- 
demn them in the sight of the Lord. If it were so, the enemy 
had a great triumph ; for assuredly it was no part of Christian 
men to leave a helpless woman unaided in her sore distress.” 

“ But, Elder,” said Widow Smith, “ it was no vision ; 
they were real living men who went ashore, men who broke 
down branches and left their footmarks on the ground.” 

“ As for that matter, Satan hath many powers, and, if it 
be the day when he is permitted to go about like a roaring 
lion, he will not stick at trifles, but make his work complete. 
I tell you, many men are spiritual enemies in visible forms, 
permitted to roam about the waste places of the earth. I 
myself believe that these Bed Indians are indeed the evil 
creatures of whom we read in Holy Scripture ; and there is 
no doubt that they are in league with those abominable 
Papists, the French people in Canada. I have heard tell, 
that the French pay the Indians so much gold for every 
dozen scalps of Englishmen’s heads.” 

“ Pretty cheerful talk this ! ” said Captain Holdemesse to 
Lois, perceiving her blanched cheek and terror-stricken 
mien. “ Thou art thinking that thou hadst better have 
stayed at Barford, I’ll answer for it, wench. But the devil 
is not so black as he is painted.” 

“ Ho ! there again ! ” said Elder Hawkins. “ The devil 
is painted, it hath been said so from old times ; and are not 
these Indians painted, even like unto their father ? ” 


120 


Lois the Witch 

“ But is it all true ? ” asked Lois, aside, of Captain 
Holdernesse, letting the Elder hold forth unheeded by her, 
though listened to with the utmost reverence by the two 
daughters of the house. 

“ My wench,” said the old sailor, “ thou hast come to a 
country where there are many perils, both from land and 
from sea. The Indians hate the white men. Whether other 
white men ” (meaning the French away to the north) “have 
hounded-on the savages, or whether the English have taken 
their lands and hunting-grounds without due recompense, 
and so raised the cruel vengeance of the wild creatures — who 
knows ? But it is true that it is not safe to go far into the 
woods, for fear of the lurking painted savages ; nor has it 
been safe to build a dwelling far from a settlement ; and it 
takes a brave heart to make a journey from one town to 
another ; and folk do say the Indian creatures rise up out 
of the very ground to waylay the English I and then others 
affirm they are all in league with Satan to affright the 
Christians out of the heathen country, over which he has 
reigned so long. Then, again, the sea-shore is infested by 
pirates, the scum of all nations : they land, and plunder, 
and ravage, and bum, and destroy. Folk get affrighted of 
the real dangers, and in their fright imagine, perchance, 
dangers that are not. But who knows? Holy Scripture 
speaks of witches and wizards, and of the power of the Evil 
One in desert places ; and, even in the old country, we have 
heard tell of those who have sold their souls for ever for the 
httle power they get for a few years on earth.” 

By this time the whole table was silent, listening to the 
captain ; it was just one of those chance silences that some- 
times occur, without any apparent reason, and often without 
any apparent consequence. But all present had reason, 
before many months had passed over, to remember the 
words which Lois spoke in answer, although her voice was 
low, and she only thought, in the interest of the moment, of 
being heard by her old friend the captain. 

“ They are fearful creatures, the witches ! and yet I am 

I2I 


Lois the Witch 

sorry for the poor old women, whilst I dread them. We had 
one in Barford, when I was a little child. No one knew 
whence she came, but she settled herself down in a mud-hut 
by the common-side ; and there she lived, she and her cat.” 
(At the mention of the cat. Elder Hawkins shook his head 
long and gloomily.) “ No one knew how she lived, if it were 
not on nettles and scraps of oatmeal and such-like food, 
given her more for fear than for pity. She went double, and 
always talking and muttering to herself. Folk said she 
snared birds and rabbits in the thicket that came down to 
her hovel. How it came to pass I cannot say, but many 
a one fell sick in the village, and much cattle died one 
spring, when I was near four years old. I never heard 
much about it, for my father said it was ill talking about 
such things ; I only know I got a sick fright one afternoon, 
when the maid had gone out for milk and had taken me 
with her, and we were passing a meadow where the Avon, 
circling, makes a deep round pool, and there was a crowd of 
folk, all still — and a still, breathless crowd makes the heart 
beat worse than a shouting, noisy one. They were all 
gazing towards the water, and the maid held me up in her 
arms, to see the sight above the shoulders of the people ; 
and I saw old Hannah in the water, her grey hair all stream- 
ing down her shoulders, and her face bloody and black with 
the stones and mud they had been throwing at her, and her 
cat tied round her neck. I hid my face, I know, as soon as I 
saw the fearsome sight, for her eyes met mine as they were 
glaring with fury — poor, helpless, baited creature ! — and she 
caught the sight of me, and cried out, ‘ Parson’s wench, 
parson’s wench, yonder, in thy nurse’s arms, thy dad hath 
never tried for to save me ; and none shall save thee, when 
thou art brought up for a witch.’ Oh ! the words rang in 
my ears, when I was dropping asleep, for years after. I 
used to dream that I was in that pond ; that all men hated 
me with their eyes because I was a witch: and, at times, 
her black cat used to seem hving again, and say over those 
dreadful words.” 


122 


Lois the Witch 

Lois stopped : the two daughters looked at her excite- 
ment with a kind of shrinking surprise, for the tears were in 
her eyes. Elder Hawkins shook his head, and muttered 
texts from Scripture ; but cheerful Widow Smith, not 
liking the gloomy turn of the conversation, tried to give it 
a lighter cast by saying, “ And I don’t doubt but what the 
parson’s bonny lass has bewitched many a one since, with 
her dimples and her pleasant ways — eh. Captain Holder- 
nesse ? It’s you must tell us tales of the young lass’s doings 
in England.” 

“ Ay, ay,” said the captain ; there’s one under her 
charms in Warwickshire who will never get the better of it, 
I’m thinking.” 

Elder Hawkins rose to speak ; he stood leaning on his 
hands, which were placed on the table : “ Brethren,” said 
he, “ I must upbraid you if ye speak lightly ; charms and 
witchcraft are evil things; I trust this maiden hath had 
nothing to do with them, even in thought. But my mind 
misgives me at her story. The hellish witch might have 
power from Satan to infect her mind, she being yet a child, 
with the deadly sin. Instead of vain talking, I call upon 
you all to join with me in prayer for this stranger in our 
land, that her heart may be purged from all iniquity. Let 
us pray.” 

“ Come, there’s no harm in that,” said the captain ; “ but. 
Elder Hawkins, when you are at work, just pray for us all ; 
for I am afeard there be some of us need purging from 
iniquity a good deal more than Lois Barclay, and a prayer 
for a man never does mischief.” 

Captain Holdernesse had business in Boston which de- 
tained him there for a couple of days ; and during that time 
Lois remained with the Widow Smith, seeing what was to 
be seen of the new land that contained her future home. 
The letter of her dying mother was sent off to Salem, mean- 
while, by a lad going thither, in order to prepare her Uncle 
Ealph Hickson for his niece’s coming, as soon as Captain 
Holdernesse could find leisure to take her ; for he considered 

123 


Lois the Witch 

her given into his own personal charge, until he could con- 
sign her to her uncle’s care. When the time came for going 
to Salem, Lois felt very sad at leaving the kindly woman 
under whose roof she had been staying, and looked back as 
long as she could see anything of Widow Smith’s dwelling. 
She was packed into a rough kind of country-cart, which 
just held her and Captain Holdemesse, beside the driver. 
There was a basket of provisions under their feet, and 
behind them hung a bag of provender for the horse ; for it 
was a good day’s journey to Salem, and the road was reputed 
so dangerous that it was ill tarrying a minute longer than 
necessary for refreshment. English roads were bad enough 
at that period, and for long after ; but in America the way 
was simply the cleared ground of the forest — the stumps of 
the felled trees still remaining in the direct line, forming 
obstacles which it required the most careful driving to 
avoid ; and in the hollows, where the ground was swampy, 
the pulpy nature of it was obviated by logs of wood laid 
across the boggy part. The deep green forest, tangled into 
heavy darkness even thus early in the year, came within a 
few yards of the road all the way, though efforts were 
regularly made by the inhabitants of the neighbouring 
settlements to keep a certain space clear on each side, for 
fear of the lurking Indians, who might otherwise come upon 
them unawares. The cries of strange birds, the unwonted 
colour of some of them, all suggested to the imaginative or 
unaccustomed traveller the idea of war-whoops and painted 
deadly enemies. But at last they drew near to Salem, which 
rivalled Boston in size in those days, and boasted the names 
of one or two streets, although to an English eye they 
looked rather more like irregularly built houses, clustered 
round the meeting-house, or rather one of the meeting- 
houses, for a second was in process of building. The whole 
place was surrounded with two circles of stockades ; between 
the two were the gardens and grazing-ground for those who 
dreaded their cattle straying into the woods, and the con- 
sequent danger of reclaiming them. 

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Lois the Witch 

The lad who drove them flogged his spent horse into a 
trot, as they went through Salem to Ealph Hickson’s house. 
It was evening, the leisure- time for the inhabitants, and 
their children were at play before the houses. Lois was 
struck by the beauty of one wee, toddling child, and turned 
to look after it ; it caught its little foot in a stump of wood, 
and fell with a cry that brought the mother out in affright. 
As she ran out, her eye caught Lois’ anxious gaze, although 
the noise of the heavy wheels drowned the sound of her 
words of inquiry as to the nature of the hurt the child had 
received. Nor had Lois time to think long upon the matter ; 
for, the instant after, the horse was pulled up at the door of 
a good, square, substantial wooden house, plastered over 
into a creamy white, perhaps as handsome a house as any 
in Salem ; and there she was told by the driver that her 
uncle, Ealph Hickson, lived. In the flurry of the moment 
she did not notice, but Captain Holdemesse did, that no one 
came out at the unwonted sound of wheels, to receive and 
welcome her. She was hfted down by the old sailor, and 
led into a large room, almost hke the hall of some English 
manor-house as to size. A tall, gaunt young man of three 
or four-and- twenty sat on a bench by one of the windows, 
reading a great folio by the fading light of day. He did not 
rise when they came in, but looked at them with surprise, 
no gleam of intelligence coming into his stern, dark face. 
There was no woman in the house-place. Captain Holder- 
nesse paused a moment, and then said — 

“ Is this house Ealph Hickson’s ? ” 

“ It is,” said the young man, in a slow, deep voice. But 
he added no word further. 

“ This is his niece, Lois Barclay,” said the captain, 
taking the girl’s arm, and pushing her forwards. The young 
man looked at her steadily and gravely for a minute ; then 
rose, and carefully marking the page in the folio, which 
hitherto had laid open upon his knee, said, still in the same 
heavy, indifferent manner, “ I will call my mother ; she will 
know.” 


125 


Lois the Witch 

He opened a door which looked into a warm bright 
kitchen, ruddy with the light of the fire, over which three 
women were apparently engaged in cooking something, while 
a fourth, an old Indian woman, of a greenish-brown colour, 
shrivelled-up and bent with apparent age, moved backwards 
and forwards, evidently fetching the others the articles they 
required. 

“Mother!” said the young man; and, having arrested 
her attention, he pointed over his shoulder to the newly- 
arrived strangers and returned to the study of his book, 
from time to time, however, furtively examining Lois from 
beneath his dark shaggy eyebrows. 

A tall, largely-made woman, past middle life, came in 
from the kitchen, and stood reconnoitring the strangers. 

Captain Holdernesse spoke — 

“ This is Lois Barclay, master Ealph Hickson’s niece.” 

“ I know nothing of her,” said the mistress of the house 
in a deep voice, almost as masculine as her son’s. 

“ Master Hickson received his sister’s letter, did he not ? 
I sent it off myself by a lad named Elias Wellcome, who left 
Boston for this place y ester morning.” 

“ Ealph Hickson has received no such letter. He lies 
bedridden in the chamber beyond. Any letters for him must 
come through my hands ; wherefore I can afi&rm with cer- 
tainty that no such letter has been delivered here. His 
sister Barclay, she that was Henrietta Hickson, and whose 
husband took the oaths to Charles Stuart, and stuck by his 
living when all godly men left theirs ” 

Lois, who had thought her heart was dead and cold, a 
minute before, at the ungracious reception she had met with, 
felt words come up into her mouth at the implied insult to 
her father, and spoke out, to her own and the captain’s 
astonishment — 

“ They might be godly men who left their churches on 
that day of which you speak, madam ; but they alone were 
not the godly men, and no one has a right to limit true 
godliness for mere opinion’s sake.” 

126 


Lois the Witch 

“Well said, lass,” spoke out the captain, looking round 
upon her with a kind of admiring wonder, and patting her 
on the back. 

Lois and her aunt gazed into each other’s eyes unflinch- 
ingly, for a minute or two of silence ; but the girl felt her 
colour coming and going, while the elder woman’s never 
varied ; and the eyes of the young maiden were filling fast 
with tears, while those of Grace Hickson kept on their stare, 
dry and unwavering. 

“ Mother,” said the young man, rising up with a quicker 
motion than any one had yet used in this house, “it is ill 
speaking of such matters when my cousin comes first among 
us. The Lord may give her grace hereafter; but she has 
travelled from Boston city to-day, and she and this seafaring 
man must need rest and food.” 

He did not attend to see the effect of his words, but sat 
down again, and seemed to be absorbed in his book in an 
instant. Perhaps he knew that his word was law with his 
grim mother ; for he had hardly ceased speaking before she 
had pointed to a wooden settle ; and, smoothing the lines on 
her countenance, she said — “ What Manasseh says is true. 
Sit down here, while I bid Faith and Nattee get food ready ; 
and meanwhile I will go tell my husband that one who calls 
herself his sister’s child is come over to pay him a visit.” 

She went to the door leading into the kitchen, and gave 
some directions to the elder girl, whom Lois now knew to 
be the daughter of the house. Faith stood impassive, while 
her mother spoke, scarcely caring to look at the newly-arrived 
strangers. She was like her brother Manasseh in complexion, 
but had handsomer features, and large, mysterious -looking 
eyes, as Lois saw, when once she lifted them up, and took 
in, as it were, the aspect of the sea-captain and her cousin 
with one swift, searching look. About the stiff, tall, angular 
mother, and the scarce less pliant figure of the daughter, a 
girl of twelve years old, or thereabouts, played all manner of 
impish antics, unheeded by them, as if it were her accustomed 
habit to peep about, now under their arms, now at this side, 

127 


Lois the Witch 

now at that, making grimaces all the while at Lois and 
Captain Holdemesse, who sat facing the door, weary, and 
somewhat disheartened by their reception. The captain 
pulled out tobacco, and began to chew it by way of conso- 
lation ; but in a moment or two his usual elasticity of spirit 
came to his rescue, and he said in a low voice to Lois — 

“ That scoundrel Elias, I will give it him ! If the letter 
had but been delivered, thou wouldst have had a different 
kind of welcome ; but, as soon as I have had some victuals, I 
will go out and find the lad, and bring back the letter, and 
that will make all right, my wench. Nay, don’t be down- 
hearted, for I cannot stand women’s tears. Thou’rt just 
worn-out with the shaking and the want of food.” 

Lois brushed away her tears, and, looking round to try and 
divert her thoughts by fixing them on present objects, she 
caught her cousin Manasseh’s deep -set eyes furtively watch- 
ing her. It was with no unfriendly gaze ; yet it made Lois 
uncomfortable, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks, 
after he must have seen that she observed him. She was 
glad when her aunt called her into an inner room to see 
her uncle, and she escaped from the steady observance of 
her gloomy, silent cousin. 

Ralph Hickson was much older than his wife, and his 
illness made him look older still. He had never had the 
force of character that Grace, his spouse, possessed; and 
age and sickness had now rendered him almost childish at 
times. But his nature was affectionate ; and, stretching out 
his trembling arms from where he lay bed-ridden, he gave 
Lois an unhesitating welcome, never waiting for the con- 
firmation of the missing letter before he acknowledged her 
to be his niece. 

“ Oh ! ’tis kind in thee to come all across the sea to 
make acquaintance with thine uncle ; kind in sister Barclay 
to spare thee ! ” 

Lois had to tell him, there was no one living to miss 
her at home in England ; that, in fact, she had no home in 
England, no father nor mother left upon earth; and that 

1 28 


Lois the Witch 

she had been bidden by her mother’s last words to seek him 
out and ask him for a home. Her words came up, half- 
choked from a heavy heart, and his dulled wits could not 
take in their meaning without several repetitions ; and then 
he cried like a child, rather at his own loss of a sister whom 
he had not seen for more than twenty years, than at that 
of the orphan’s, standing before him, trying hard not to cry, 
but to start bravely in this new strange home. What most 
of all helped Lois, in her self-restraint was her aunt’s 
unsympathetic look. Bom and bred in New England, 
Grace Hickson had a kind of jealous dislike to her husband’s 
English relations, which had increased since of late years 
his weakened mind yearned after them ; and he forgot the 
good reason he had had for his self-exile, and moaned over 
the decision which had led to it as the great mistake of his 
life. “ Come,” said she ; it strikes me that, in all this 
sorrow for the loss of one who died full of years, ye are 
forgetting in Whose hands life and death are ! ” 

True words, but ill-spoken at that time. Lois looked up 
at her with a scarcely disguised indignation ; which increased 
as she heard the contemptuous tone in which her aunt went 
on talking to Ealph Hickson, even while she was arranging 
his bed with a regard to his greater comfort. 

“ One would think thou wert a godless man, by the moan 
thou art always making over spilt milk ; and truth is, thou 
art but childish in thine old age. When we were wed, thou 
left all things to the Lord ; I would never have married thee 
else. Nay, lass,” said she, catching the expression on Lois’s 
face, “thou art never going to browbeat me with thine 
angry looks. I do my duty as I read it, and there is never 
a man in Salem that dare speak a word to Grace Hickson 
about either her works or her faith. Godly Mr. Cotton 
Mather hath said, that even he might learn of me ; and I 
would advise thee rather to humble thyself, and see if the 
Lord may not convert thee from thy ways, since He has 
sent thee to dwell, as it were, in Zion, where the precious 
dew falls daily on Aaron’s beard.” 

129 


K 


Lois the Witch 

Lois felt ashamed and sorry to find that her aunt had so 
truly interpreted the momentary expression of her features ; 
she blamed herself a little for the feeling that had caused 
that expression, trying to think how much her aimt might 
have been troubled with something, before the unexpected 
irruption of the strangers, and again hoping that the remem- 
brance of this misunderstanding would soon pass away. So 
she endeavoured to reassure herself, and not to give way 
to her uncle’s tender trembling pressure of her hand, as, 
at her aunt’s bidding, she wished him “ good-night,” and 
returned into the outer, or “ keeping ’’-room, where all the 
family were now assembled, ready for the meal of flour- 
cakes and venison-steaks which Nattee, the Indian servant, 
was bringing in from the kitchen. No one seemed to have 
been speaking to Captain Holdernesse, while Lois had been 
away. Manasseh sat quiet and silent where he did, with 
the book open upon his knee ; his eyes thoughtfully fixed 
on vacancy, as if he saw a vision, or dreamed dreams. 
Faith stood by the table, lazily directing Nattee in her 
preparations; and Prudence lolled against the door-frame, 
between kitchen and keeping-room, playing tricks on the 
old Indian woman, as she passed backwards and forwards, 
till Nattee appeared to be in a state of strong irritation, 
which she tried in vain to suppress ; as, whenever she 
showed any sign of it. Prudence only seemed excited to 
greater mischief. When all was ready, Manasseh hfted his 
right hand and “ asked a blessing,” as it was termed ; but 
the grace became a long prayer for abstract spiritual bless- 
ings, for strength to combat Satan, and to quench his fiery 
darts, and at length assumed — so Lois thought — a purely 
personal character, as if the young man had forgotten the 
occasion, and even the people present, but was searching 
into the nature of the diseases that beset his own sick soul, 
and spreading them out before the Lord. He was brought 
back by a pluck at the coat from Prudence ; he opened his 
shut eyes, cast an angry glance at the child, who made a 
face at him for sole reply, and then he sat down, and they 

130 


Lois the Witch 

all fell to. Grace Hickson would have thought her hospitality 
sadly at fault, if she had allowed Captain Holdernesse to go 
out in search of a bed. Skins were spread for him on the 
floor of the keeping-room ; a Bible and a square bottle of 
spirits were placed on the table to supply his wants during 
the night ; and, in spite of all the cares and troubles, tempta- 
tions, or sins of the members of that household, they were 
all asleep before the town clock struck ten. 

In the morning, the captain’s first care was to go out in 
search of the boy Elias and the missing letter. He met him 
bringing it with an easy conscience, for, thought Elias, a 
few hours sooner or later will make no difference ; to-night 
or the morrow morning will be all the same. But he was 
startled into a sense of wrong-doing, by a sound box on the 
ear from the very man who had charged him to deliver it 
speedily, and whom he believed to be at that very moment 
in Boston city. 

The letter delivered, all possible proof being given that 
Lois had a right to claim a home from her nearest relations. 
Captain Holdernesse thought it best to take leave. 

“ Thou’lt take to them, lass, maybe, when there is no 
one here to make thee think on the old country. Nay, nay ! 
parting is hard work at all times, and best get hard work 
done out of hand ! Keep up thine heart, my wench, and I’ll 
come back and see thee next spring, if we are all spared till 
then ; and who knows what fine young miller mayn’t come 
with me? Don’t go and get wed to a praying Puritan, 
meanwhile ! There, there ; I’m off. God bless thee ! ” 

And Lois was left alone in New England. 


CHAPTER II 

It was hard up-hill work for Lois to win herself a place in 
this family. Her aunt was a woman of narrow, strong 
affections. Her love for her husband, if ever she had any, 


Lois the Witch 

was burnt out and dead long ago. What she did for him, 
she did from duty; but duty was not strong enough to 
restrain that little member, the tongue; and Lois’s heart 
often bled at the continual flow of contemptuous reproof 
which Grace constantly addressed to her husband, even 
while she was sparing no pains or trouble to minister to his 
bodily ease and comfort. It was more as a relief to herself 
that she spoke in this way, than with any desire that her 
speeches should affect him ; and he was too deadened by 
illness to feel hurt by them; or, it may be, the constant 
repetition of her sarcasms had made him indifferent ; at 
any rate, so that he had his food and his state of bodily 
Warmth attended to, he very seldom seemed to care much 
for anything else. Even his first flow of affection towards 
Lois was soon exhausted ; he cared for her, because she 
arranged his pillows well and skilfully, and because she 
could prepare new and dainty kinds of food for his sick 
appetite, but no longer for her as his dead sister’s child. 
Still he did care for her, and Lois was too glad of his little 
hoard of affection to examine how or why it was given. To 
him she could give pleasure, but apparently to no one else 
in that household. Her aunt looked askance at her for 
many reasons : the first coming of Lois to Salem was in- 
opportune ; the expression of disapprobation on her face on 
that evening still lingered and rankled in Grace’s memory ; 
early prejudices, and feelings, and prepossessions of the 
English girl were all on the side of what would now be 
called Church and State, what was then esteemed in that 
country a superstitious observance of the directions of a 
Popish rubric, and a servile regard for the family of an 
oppressing and irreligious king. Nor is it to be supposed 
that Lois did not feel, and feel acutely, the want of sympathy 
that all those with whom she was now living manifested 
towards the old hereditary loyalty (religious as well as 
political loyalty) in which she had been brought up. With 
her aunt and Manasseh it was more than want of sympathy ; 
it was positive, active antipathy to all the ideas Lois held 

132 


Lois the Witch 

most dear. The very allusion, however incidentally made, to 
the little old grey church at Barford, where her father had 
preached so long — the occasional reference to the troubles in 
which her own country had been, distracted when she left— 
and the adherence, in which she had been brought up, to the 
notion that the king could do no wrong, seemed to irritate 
Manasseh past endurance. He would get up from his read- 
ing, his constant employment when at home, and walk 
angrily about the room after Lois had said anything of this 
kind, muttering to himself ; and once he had even stopped 
before her, and in a passionate tone bade her not talk so like 
a fool. Now this was very different to his mother’s sarcastic, 
contemptuous way of treating all poor Lois’s little loyal 
speeches. Grace would lead her on — at least she did at 
first, till experience made Lois wiser — to express her thoughts 
on such subjects, till, just when the girl’s heart was opening, 
her aunt would turn round upon her with some bitter sneer 
that roused all the evil feelings in Lois’s disposition by its 
sting. Now Manasseh seemed, through all his anger, to be 
so really grieved by what he considered her error, that he 
went much nearer to convincing her that there might be two 
sides to a question. Only this was a view that it appeared 
like treachery to her dead father’s memory to entertain. 

Somehow, Lois felt instinctively that Manasseh was 
really friendly towards her. He was little in the house; 
there was farming, and some kind of mercantile business to 
be transacted by him, as real head of the house ; and, as the 
season drew on, he went shooting and hunting in the sur- 
rounding forests, with a daring which caused his mother to 
warn and reprove him in private, although to the neighbours 
she boasted largely of her son’s courage and disregard of 
danger. Lois did not often walk out for the mere sake of 
walking ; .there was generally some household errand to be 
transacted when any of the women of the family went 
abroad ; but once or twice she had caught glimpses of the 
dreary, dark wood, hemming in the cleared land on all sides 
— the great wood with its perpetual movement of branch and 

133 


Lois the Witch 

bough, and its solemn wail, that came into the very streets 
of Salem when certain winds blew, bearing the sound of the 
pine-trees clear upon the ears that had leisure to listen. And, 
from all accounts, this old forest, girdling round the settle- 
ment, was full of dreaded and mysterious beasts, and still 
more to be dreaded Indians, stealing in and out among the 
shadows, intent on bloody schemes against the Christian 
people : panther-streaked, shaven Indians, in league by their 
own confession, as well as by the popular belief, with evil 
powers. 

Nattee, the old Indian servant, would occasionally make 
Lois’s blood run cold, as she and Faith and Prudence listened 
to the wild stories she told them of the wizards of her race. 
It was often in the kitchen, in the darkening evening, while 
some cooking process was going on, that the old Indian 
crone, sitting on her haunches by the bright red wood embers 
which sent up no flame, but a lurid light reversing the 
shadows of all the faces around, told her weird stories, while 
they were awaiting the rising of the dough, perchance, out 
of which the household bread had to be made. There ran 
through these stories always a ghastly, unexpressed sugges- 
tion of some human sacrifice being needed to complete the 
success of any incantation to the Evil One ; and the poor old 
creature, herself believing and shuddering as she narrated her 
tale in broken English, took a strange, unconscious pleasure 
in her power over her hearers — young girls of the oppressing 
race, which had brought her down into a state little differing 
from slavery, and reduced her people to outcasts on the 
hunting-grounds which had belonged to her fathers. 

After such tales, it required no small effort on Lois’s part 
to go out, at her aunt’s command, into the common pasture 
round the town, and bring the cattle home at night. Who 
knew but what the double -headed snake might start up from 
each blackberry-bush — that wicked, cunning, accursed crea- 
ture in the service of the Indian wizards, that had such power 
over all those white maidens who met the eyes placed at 
either end of his long, sinuous, creeping body, so that, loathe 

134 


Lois the Witch 

him, loathe the Indian race as they would, off they must go 
into the forest to seek out some Indian man, and must beg 
to be taken into his wigwam, adjuring faith and race for 
ever ? Or there were spells — so Nattee said — hidden about 
the ground by the wizards, which changed that person’s 
nature who found them ; so that, gentle and loving as they 
might have been before, thereafter they took no pleasure but 
in the cruel torments of others, and had a strange power 
given to them of causing such torments at their will. Once, 
Nattee, speaking low to Lois, who was alone with her in the 
kitchen, whispered out her terrified belief that such a spell 
had Prudence found ; and, when the Indian showed her arms 
to Lois, all pinched black and blue by the impish child, the 
English girl began to be afraid of her cousin as of one 
possessed. But it was not Nattee alone, nor young imagi- 
native girls alone, that believed in these stories. We can 
afford to smile at them now; but our English ancestors 
entertained superstitions of much the same character at the 
same period, and with less excuse, as the circumstances 
surrounding them were better known, and consequently 
more explicable by common sense, than the real mysteries of 
the deep, untrodden forests of New England. The gravest 
divines not only believed stories similar to that of the double- 
headed serpent, and other tales of witchcraft, but they made 
such narrations the subjects of preaching and prayer ; and, 
as cowardice makes us all cruel, men who were blameless in 
many of the relations of life, and even praiseworthy in some, 
became, from superstition, cruel persecutors about this time, 
showing no mercy towards any one whom they believed to 
be in league with the Evil One. 

Faith was the person with whom the English girl was 
the most intimately associated in her uncle’s house. The 
two were about the same age, and certain household-employ- 
ments were shared between them. They took it in turns to 
call in the cows, to make up the butter which had been 
churned by Hosea, a stiff, old out-door servant, in whom 
Grace Hickson placed great confidence ; and each lassie had 

135 


Lois the Witch 

her great spinning-wheel for wool, and her lesser for . flax, 
before a month had elapsed after Lois’s coming. Faith was 
a grave, silent person, never merry, sometimes very sad, 
though Lois was a long time in even guessing why. She 
would try, in her sweet, simple fashion, to cheer her cousin 
up, when the latter was depressed, by telling her old stories 
of English ways and life. Occasionally, Faith seemed to 
care to listen ; occasionally, she did not heed one word, but 
dreamed on. Whether of the past or of the future, who 
could tell ? 

Stem old ministers came in to pay their pastoral visits. 
On such occasions, Grace Hickson would put on clean apron 
and clean cap, and make them more welcome than she was 
ever seen to do any one else, bringing out the best provisions 
of her store, and setting of all before them. Also, the great 
Bible was brought forth, and Hosea and Nattee summoned 
from their work, to listen while the minister read a chapter, 
and, as he read, expounded it at considerable length. After 
this all knelt, while he, standing, lifted up his right hand, 
and prayed for all possible combinations of Christian men, 
for all possible cases of spiritual need ; and lastly, taking the 
individuals before ' him, he would put up a very personal 
supplication for each, according to his notion of their wants. 
At first, Lois wondered at the aptitude of one or two of his 
prayers of this description to the outward circumstances of 
each case ; but, when she perceived that her aunt had usually 
a pretty long confidential conversation with the minister in 
the early part of his visit, she became aware that he received 
both his impressions and his knowledge through the medium 
of “ that godly woman, Grace Hickson ; ” and I am afraid 
she paid less regard to the prayer “for the maiden from 
another land, who hath brought the errors of that land as 
a seed with her, even across the great ocean, and who is 
letting even now the little seeds shoot up into an evil tree, in 
which all unclean creatures may find shelter.” 

“ I like the prayers of our Church better,” said Lois one 
day to Faith. “ No clergyman in England can pray his own 

136 


Lois the Witch 

words ; and therefore it is that he does not judge of others 
so as to fit his prayers to what he esteems to be their case, 
as Mr. Tappau did this morning.” 

“I hate Mr. Tappau 1 ” said Faith shortly, a passionate 
flash of light coming out of her dark, heavy eyes. 

“ Why so, cousin ? It seems to me as if he were a good 
man, although I like not his prayers.” 

Faith only repeated her words, “ I hate him ! ” 

Lois was sorry for this strong, bad feeling; instinctively 
sorry, for she was loving herself, delighted in being loved, 
and felt a jar run through her at every sign of want of love 
in others. But she did not know what to say, and was silent 
at the time. Faith, too, went on turning her wheel with 
vehemence, but spoke never a word until her thread snapped ; 
and then she pushed the wheel away hastily, and left the 
room. 

Then Prudence crept softly up to Lois’s side. This 
strange child seemed to be tossed about by varying moods : 
to-day she was caressing and communicative ; to-morrow 
she might be deceitful, mocking, and so indifferent to the pain 
or sorrows of others that you could call her almost inhuman. 

“ So thou dost not hke Pastor Tappau’s prayers ? ” she 
whispered. 

Lois was sorry to have been overheard ; but she neither 
would nor could take back her words. 

“ I hke them not so well as the prayers I used to hear at 
home.” 

“ Mother says thy home was with the ungodly. Nay, 
don’t look at me so — it was not I that said it. I’m none so 
fond of praying myself, nor of Pastor Tappau, for that matter. 
But Faith cannot abide him, and I know why. Shall 1 tell 
thee. Cousin Lois ? ” 

“ No ! Faith did not tell me ; and she was the right person 
to give her own reasons.” 

“ Ask her where young Mr. Nolan is gone to, and thou 
wilt hear. I have seen Faith cry by the hour together about 
Mr. Nolan.” 


137 


Lois the Witch 

“ Hush, child ! hush ! ” said Lois, for she heard Faith’s 
approaching step, and feared lest she should overhear what 
they were saying. 

The truth was that, a year or two before, there had been 
a great struggle in Salem village, a great division in the 
religious body, and Pastor Tappau had been the leader of 
the more violent, and, ultimately, the successful party. In 
consequence of this, the less popular minister, Mr. Nolan, 
had had to leave the place. And him Faith Hickson loved 
with all the strength of her passionate heart, although he 
never was aware of the attachment he had excited, and her 
own family were too regardless of manifestations of mere 
feeling ever to observe the signs of any emotion on her part. 
But the old Indian servant Nattee saw and observed them 
all. She knew, as well as if she had been told the reason, 
why Faith had lost all care about father or mother, brother 
and sister, about household work and daily occupation ; nay, 
about the observances of religion as well. Nattee read the 
meaning of the deep smouldering of Faith’s dishke to Pastor 
Tappau aright ; the Indian woman understood why the girl 
(whom alone of all the white people she loved) avoided the 
old minister — would hide in the wood-stack, sooner than be 
called in to listen to his exhortations and prayers. With 
savage, untutored people, it is not “ Love me, love my dog,” — 
they are often jealous of the creature beloved; but it is, 
“ Whom thou hatest I will hate ; ” and Nattee’s feeling 
towards Pastor Tappau was even an exaggeration of the 
mute, unspoken hatred of Faith. 

For a long time, the cause of her cousin’s dislike and 
avoidance of the minister was a mystery to Lois ; but the 
name of Nolan remained in her memory, whether she would 
or no ; and it was more from girlish interest in a suspected 
love affair, than from any indifferent and heartless curiosity, 
that she could not help piecing together little speeches and 
actions with Faith’s interest in the absent banished minister, 
for an explanatory clue, till not a doubt remained in her mind. 
And this without any further communication with Prudence ; 

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Lois the Witch 

for Lois declined hearing any more on the subject from her, 
and so gave deep offence. 

Faith grew sadder and duller, as the autumn drew on. 
She lost her appetite ; her brown complexion became sallow 
and colourless ; her dark eyes looked hollow and wild. The 
first of November was near at hand. Lois, in her instinctive, 
well-intentioned efforts to bring some hfe and cheerfulness 
into the monotonous household, had been telhng Faith of 
many English customs, silly enough, no doubt, and which 
scarcely hghted up a flicker of interest in the American girl’s 
mind. The cousins were lying awake in their bed, in the 
great unplastered room, which was in part store-room, in 
part bed-room. Lois was full of sympathy for Faith that 
night. For long she had listened to her cousin’s heavy, 
irrepressible sighs, in silence. Faith sighed, because her 
grief was of too old a date for violent emotion or crying. 
Lois hstened without speaking in the dark, quiet night hours, 
for a long, long time. She kept quite still, because she 
thought such vent for sorrow might relieve her cousin’s 
weary heart. But, when at length, instead of lying motion- 
less, Faith seemed to be growing restless, even to convulsive 
motions of her limbs, Lois began to speak, to talk about 
England, and the dear old ways at home, without exciting 
much attention on Faith’s part ; until at length she fell upon 
the subject of Hallow-e’en, and told about customs then and 
long afterwards practised in England, and that have scarcely 
yet died out in Scotland. As she told of tricks she had often 
played, of the apple eaten facing a mirror, of the dripping 
sheet, of the basins of water, of the nuts burning side by 
side, and many other such innocent ways of divination, by 
which laughing, trembling English maidens sought to see 
the form of their future husbands, if husbands they were to 
have: then Faith listened breathlessly, asking short eager 
questions, as if some ray of hope had entered into her 
gloomy heart. Lois went on speaking, telling her of all 
the stories that would confirm the truth of the second sight 
vouchsafed to all seekers in the accustomed methods ; half- 

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Lois the Witch 

believing, half-incredulous herself, hut desiring, above all 
things, to cheer up poor Faith. 

Suddenly, Prudence rose up from her truckle-hed in the 
dim corner of the room. They had not thought that she 
was awake ; but she had been listening long. 

“ Cousin Lois may go out and meet Satan by the brook- 
side, if she will ; but, if thou goest. Faith, I will tell mother 
— ay, and I will tell Pastor Tappau, too. Hold thy stories. 
Cousin Lois ; I am af eared of my very life. I would rather 
never be wed at all, than feel the touch of the creature that 
would take the apple out of my hand, as I held it over my 
left shoulder.” The’ excited girl gave a loud scream of terror 
at the image her fancy had conjured up. Faith and Lois 
sprang out towards her, flying across the moon-ht room in 
their white night-gowns. At the same instant, summoned 
by the same cry, Grace Hickson came to her child. 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” said Faith, authoritatively. 

“ What is it, my wench ? ” asked Grace. While Lois, 
feeling as if she had done all the mischief, kept silence. 

“ Take her away, take her away ! ” screamed Prudence. 
“ Look over her shoulder — her left shoulder — the Evil One 
is there now, I see him stretching over for the half-bitten 
apple.” 

“ What is it she says ? ” said Grace austerely. 

“ She is dreaming,” said Faith ; “ Prudence, hold thy 
tongue.” And she pinched the child severely, while Lois 
more tenderly tried to soothe the alarms she felt that she 
had conjured up. 

“ Be quiet. Prudence,” said she, “ and go to sleep ! I 
will stay by thee, till thou hast gone off into slumber.” 

“ No, no ! go away ! ” sobbed Prudence, who was really 
terrified at first, but was now assuming more alarm than she 
felt, from the pleasure she received at perceiving herself the 
centre of attention. “ Faith shall stay by me, not you, 
wicked English witch ! ” 

So Faith sat by her sister; and Grace, displeased and 
perplexed, withdrew to her own bed, purposing to inquire 

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Lois the Witch 

more into the matter in the morning. Lois only hoped it 
might all be forgotten by that time, and resolved never to 
talk again of such things. But an event happened in the 
remaining hours of the night to change the current of affairs. 
While Grace had been absent from her room, her husband 
had had another paralytic stroke : whether he, too, had been 
alarmed by that eldritch scream no one could ever know. 
By the faint hght of the rush-candle burning at the bed-side, 
his wife perceived that a great change had taken place in 
his aspect on her return : the irregular breathing came 
almost like snorts — the end was drawing near. The family 
were roused, and all help given that either the doctor or 
experience could suggest. But before the late November 
morning-light, all was ended for Ealph Hickson. 

The whole of the ensuing day, they sat or moved in 
darkened rooms, and spoke few words, and those below 
their breath. Manasseh kept at home, regretting his father, 
no doubt, but showing httle emotion. Faith was the child 
that bewailed her loss most grievously; she had a warm 
heart, hidden away somewhere under her moody exterior, 
and her father had shown her far more passive kindness 
than ever her mother had done ; for Grace made distinct 
favourites of Manasseh, her only son, and Prudence, her 
youngest child. Lois was about as unhappy as any of them ; 
for she had felt strongly drawn towards her uncle as her 
kindest friend, and the sense of his loss renewed the old 
sorrow she had experienced at her own parent’s death. But 
she had no time and no place to cry in. On her devolved 
many of the cares which it would have seemed indecorous 
in the nearer relatives to interest themselves in enough to 
take an active part : the change required in their dress, the 
household preparations for the sad feast of the funeral — Lois 
had to arrange all under her aunt’s stem direction. 

But, a day or two afterwards — the last day before the 
funeral — she went into the yard to fetch in some faggots for 
the oven ; it was a solemn, beautiful, starlit evening, and 
some sudden sense of desolation in the midst of the vast 

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Lois the Witch 

universe thus revealed touched Lois’s heart, and she sat 
down behind the wood-stack, and cried very plentiful tears. 

She was startled by Manasseh, who suddenly turned the 
comer of the stack, and stood before her. 

“ Lois crying I ” 

“Only a little,” she said, rising up, and gathering her 
bundle of faggots ; for she dreaded being questioned by her 
grim, impassive cousin. To her surprise, he laid his hand 
on her arm, and said — 

“ Stop one minute. Why art thou crying, cousin ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” she said, just hke a child questioned in 
like manner ; and she was again on the point of weeping. 

“ My father was very kind to thee, Lois ; I do not wonder 
that thou grievest after him. But the Lord who taketh away 
can restore tenfold. I will be as kind as my father — yea, 
kinder. This is not a time to talk of marriage and giving in 
marriage. But after we have buried our dead, I wish to 
speak to thee.” 

Lois did not cry now ; but she shrank with affright. 
What did her cousin mean ? She would far rather that he 
had been angry with her for unreasonable grieving, for folly. 

She avoided him carefully — as carefully as she could, 
without seeming to dread him — for the next few days. 
Sometimes, she thought it must have been a bad dream ; for, 
if there had been no English lover in the case, no other man 
in the whole world, she could never have thought of Manas- 
seh as her husband ; indeed, till now, there had been nothing 
in his words or actions to suggest such an idea. Now it 
had been suggested, there was no telling how much she 
loathed him. He might be good, and pious — he doubtless 
was — but his dark, fixed eyes, moving so slowly and heavily, 
his lank, black hair, his grey, coarse skin, all made her dislike 
him now — all his personal ughness and ungainliness struck 
on her senses with a jar, since those few words spoken 
behind the hay-stack. 

She knew that, sooner or later, the time must come for 
further discussion of this subject ; but, like a coward, she 

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Lois the Witch 

tried to put it off by clinging to her aunt’s apron-string, for 
she was sure that Grace Hickson had far different views for 
her only son. As, indeed, she had ; for she was an ambitious, 
as well as a religious, woman ; and, by an early purchase of 
land in Salem village, the Hicksons had become wealthy 
people, without any great exertions of their own — partly, 
also, by the silent process of accumulation ; for they had 
never cared to change their manner of living, from the time 
when it had been suitable to a far smaller income than that 
which they at present enjoyed. So much for worldly cir- 
cumstances. As for their worldly character, it stood as high. 
No one could say a word against any of their habits or 
actions. Their righteousness and godliness were patent to 
every one’s eyes. So Grace Hickson thought herself en- 
titled to pick and choose among the maidens, before she 
should meet with one fitted to be Manasseh’s wife. None 
in Salem came up to her imaginary standard. She had it 
in her mind even at this very time, so soon after her 
husband’s death, to go to Boston, and take counsel with the 
leading ministers there, with worthy Mr. Cotton Mather at 
their head, and see if they could tell her of a well-favoured 
and godly young maiden in their congregations worthy of 
being the wife of her son. But, besides good looks and 
godliness, the wench must have good birth and good wealth, 
or Grace Hickson would have put her contemptuously on 
one side. When once this paragon was found, and the 
ministers had approved, Grace anticipated no difficulty on 
her son’s part. So Lois was right in feeling that her aunt 
would dislike any speech of marriage between Manasseh and 
herself. 

But the girl was brought to bay one day, in this wise. 
Manasseh had ridden forth on some business, which every 
one said would occupy him the whole day ; but, meeting the 
man with whom he had to transact his affairs, he returned 
earlier than any one expected. He missed Lois from the 
keeping-room, where his sisters were spinning, almost im- 
mediately. His mother sat by at her knitting ; he could see 

143 


Lois the Witch 

Nattee in the kitchen through the open door. He was too 
reserved to ask where Lois was ; but he quietly sought till he 
found her, in the great loft, already piled with winter stores 
of fruit and vegetables. Her aunt had sent her there to 
examine the apples one by one, and pick out such as were 
unsound for immediate use. She was stooping down, and 
intent upon this work, and was hardly aware of his approach, 
until she lifted up her head and saw him standing close 
before her. She dropped the apple she was holding, went 
a little paler than her wont, and faced him in silence. 

“ Lois,” he said, “ thou rememberest the words that I 
spoke while we yet mourned over my father. I think that 
I am called to marriage now, as the head of this household. 
And I have seen no maiden so pleasant in my sight as thou 
art, Lois ! ” He tried to take her hand. But she put it 
behind her with a childish shake of her head, and, half- 
crying, said — 

“ Please, Cousin Manasseh, do not say this to me ! I 
dare say you ought to be married, being the head of the 
household now ; but I don’t want to be married. I would 
rather not.” 

“That is well spoken,” replied he; frowning a little, 
nevertheless. “ I should not like to take to wife an over- 
forward maiden, ready to jump at wedlock. Besides, the 
congregation might talk, if we were to be married too soon 
after my father’s death. We have, perchance, said enough, 
even now. But I wished thee to have thy mind set at ease 
as to thy future well-doing. Thou wilt have leisure to think 
of it, and to bring thy mind more fully round to it.” Again 
he held out his hand. This time she took hold of it with a 
free, frank gesture. 

“I owe you somewhat for your kindness to me. ever 
since I came. Cousin Manasseh ; and I have no way of 
paying you but by telling you truly I can love you as a dear 
friend, if you will let me, but never as a wife.” 

He flung her hand away, but did not take his eyes off 
her face, though his glance was lowering and gloomy. He 

144 


Lois the Witch 

muttered something which she did not quite hear ; and so 
she went on bravely, although she kept trembling a little, 
and had much ado to keep from crying. 

“ Please, let me tell you all ! There was a young man in 
Barford — nay, Manasseh, I cannot speak if you are so angry ; 
it is hard work to tell you anyhow — he said that he wanted 
to marry me ; but I was poor, and his father would have 
none of it ; and I do not want to marry any one ; but, if I 

did, it would be ” Her voice dropped, and her blushes 

told the rest. Manasseh stood looking at her with sullen, 
hollow eyes, that had a gathering touch of wildness in them ; 
and then he said — 

“ It is home in upon me — ^verily, I see it as in a vision — 
that thou must be my spouse, and no other man’s. Thou 
canst not escape what is fore-doomed. Months ago, when 
I set myself to read the old godly books in which my soul 
used to delight until thy coming ; I saw no letter of printer’s 
ink marked on the page, but I saw a gold and ruddy type of 
some unknown language, the meaning whereof was whispered 
into my soul ; it was, ‘ Marry Lois ! marry Lois ! ’ And, 
when my father died, I knew it was the beginning of the 
end. It is the Lord’s will, Lois, and thou canst not escape 
from it.” And again he would have taken her hand, and 
drawn her towards him. But this time she eluded him with 
ready movement. 

“ I do not acknowledge it to be the Lord’s will, Manasseh,” 
said she. “It is not ‘ borne in upon me,’ as you Puritans 
call it, that I am to be your wife. I am none so set upon 
wedlock as to take you, even though there be no other 
chance for me. For I do not care for you as I ought to 
care for my husband. But I could have cared for you very 
much as a cousin — as a kind cousin.” 

She stopped speaking; she could not choose the right 
words with which to speak to him of her gratitude and 
friendliness, which yet could never be any feeling nearer 
and dearer, no more than two parallel lines can ever meet. 

But he was so convinced by what he considered the spirit 

145 ^ 


Lois the Witch 

of prophecy, that Lois was to be his wife, that he felt rather 
more indignant at what he considered to be her resistance to 
the pre-ordained decree, than really anxious as to the result. 
Again he tried to convince her that neither he nor she had 
any choice in the matter, by saying — 

“ The voice said unto me ‘ Marry Lois ; ’ and I said, ‘ I 
will. Lord.’ ” 

“ But,” Lois replied, “ the voice, as you call it, has never 
spoken such a word to me.” 

“ Lois,” he answered solemnly, “ it will speak. And then 
wilt thou obey, even as Samuel did ? ” 

“ No ; indeed I cannot ! ” she answered briskly. “ I may 
take a dream to be the truth, and hear my own fancies, if 
I think about them too long. But I cannot marry any one 
from obedience.” 

“ Lois, Lois, thou art as yet unregenerate ; but I have 
seen thee in a vision as one of the elect, robed in white. As 
yet thy faith is too weak for thee to obey meekly; but it 
shall not always be so. I will pray that thou mayest see 
thy preordained course. Meanwhile, I will smooth away 
all worldly obstacles.” 

“ Cousin Manasseh ! Cousin Manasseh ! ” cried Lois after 
him, as he was leaving the room, “come back! I cannot 
put it in strong enough words. Manasseh, there is no power 
in heaven or earth that can make me love thee enough to 
marry thee, or to wed thee without such love. And this I 
say solemnly, because it is better that this should end at 
once.” 

For a moment he was staggered ; then he hfted up his 
hands, and said — 

“ God forgive thee thy blasphemy ! Eemember Hazael, 
who said, ‘ Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great 
thing ? ’ and went straight and did it, because his evil courses 
were fixed and appointed for him from before the foundation 
of the world. And shall not thy paths be laid out among 
the godly, as it hath been foretold to me ? ” 

He went away ; and for a minute or two Lois felt as if 
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Lois the Witch 

his words must come true, and that, struggle as she would, 
hate her doom as she would, she must become his wife ; 
and, under the circumstances, many a girl would have 
succumbed to her apparent fate. Isolated from all previous 
connections, hearing no word from England, living in the 
heavy, monotonous routine of a family with one man for 
head, and this man esteemed a hero by most of those around 
him, simply because he was the only man in the family — 
these facts alone would have formed strong presumptions 
that most girls would have yielded to the offers of such a 
one. But, besides this, there was much to tell upon the 
imagination in those days, in that place and time. It was 
prevalently believed that there were manifestations of 
spiritual influence — of the direct influence both of good and 
bad spirits — constantly to be perceived in the course of 
men’s lives. Lots were drawn, as guidance from the Lord ; 
the Bible was opened, and the leaves allowed to fall apart ; 
and the first text the eye fell upon was supposed to be 
appointed from above as a direction. Sounds were heard 
that could not be accounted for ; they were made by the evil 
spirits not yet banished from the desert-places of which they 
had so long held possession. Sights, inexplicable and 
mysterious, were dimly seen — Satan, in some shape, seeking 
whom he might devour. And, at the beginning of the long 
winter season, such whispered tales, such old temptations 
and hauntings, and devilish terrors, were supposed to be 
peculiarly rife. Salem was, as it were, snowed up, and left 
to prey upon itself. The long, dark evenings; the dimly- 
lighted rooms ; the creaking passages, where heterogeneous 
articles were piled away, out of the reach of the keen-piercing 
frost, and where occasionally, in the dead of night, a sound 
was heard, as of some heavy falling body, when, next 
morning, everything appeared to be in its right place (so 
accustomed are we to measure noises by comparison with 
themselves, and not with the absolute stillness of the night- 
season); the white mist, coming nearer and nearer to the 
windows every evening in strange shapes, like phantoms — 

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Lois the Witch 

all these, and many other circumstances : such as the distant 
fall of mighty trees in the mysterious forests girdling them 
round ; the faint whoop and cry of some Indian seeking his 
camp, and unwittingly nearer to the white men’s settlement 
than either he or they would have liked, could they have 
chosen ; the hungry yells of the wild beasts approaching 
the cattle-pens — these were the things which made that 
winter hfe in Salem, in the memorable time of 1691-2, seem 
strange, and haunted, and terrific to many ; peculiarly weird 
and awful to the English girl, in her first year’s sojourn 
in America. 

And now, imagine Lois worked upon perpetually by 
Manasseh’s conviction that it was decreed that she should 
be his wife, and you will see that she was not without 
courage and spirit to resist as she did, steadily, firmly, and 
yet sweetly. Take one instance out of many, when her 
nerves were subjected to a shock — slight in relation, it is 
true ; but then remember that she had been all day, and for 
many days, shut up within doors, in a dull light that at 
mid-day was almost dark with a long- continued snowstorm. 
Evening was coming on, and the wood fire was more cheerful 
than any of the human beings surrounding it; the mono- 
tonous whirr of the smaller spinning-wheels had been going 
on all day, and the store of flax downstairs was nearly 
exhausted : when Grace Hickson bade Lois fetch down some 
more from the store-room, before the light so entirely waned 
away that it could not be found without a candle, and a 
candle it would be dangerous to carry into that apartment 
full of combustible materials, especially at this time of hard 
frost, when every drop of water was locked up and bound 
in icy hardness. So Lois went, half-shrinking from the long 
passage that led to the stairs leading up into the store-room ; 
for it was in this passage that the strange night-sounds were 
heard, which every one had begun to notice, and speak about 
in lowered tones. She sang, however, as she went, “ to keep 
her courage up,” in a subdued voice, the evening hymn she 
had so often sung in Barford church — 

148 


Lois the Witch 

“ Glory to Thee, my God, this night; ” 

and so it was, I suppose, that she never heard the breathing 
or motion of any creature near her, till, just as she was 
loading herself with flax to carry down, she heard some one 
— it was Manasseh — say close to her ear : 

“ Has the voice spoken yet ? Speak, Lois ! Has the 
voice spoken yet to thee — that speaketh to me day and 
night, ‘ Marry Lois ’ ? ” 

She started and turned a little sick, but spoke almost 
directly in a brave, clear manner — 

“No, Cousin Manasseh ! And it never will.” 

“ Then I must wait yet longer,” he replied hoarsely, as 
if to himself. But all submission— all submission.” 

At last, a break came upon the monotony of the long, 
dark winter. The parishioners once more raised the dis- 
cussion whether — the parish extending as it did — it was not 
absolutely necessary for Pastor Tappau to have help. This 
question had been mooted once before ; and then Pastor 
Tappau had acquiesced in the necessity, and all had gone on 
smoothly for some months after the appointment of his 
assistant ; until a feeling had sprung up on the part of the 
elder minister, which might have been called jealousy of 
the younger, if so godly a man as Pastor Tappau could have 
been supposed to entertain so evil a passion. However that 
might be, two parties were speedily formed ; the younger and 
more ardent being in favour of Mr. Nolan, the elder and 
more persistent — and, at the time, the more numerous — 
clinging to the old, grey-headed, dogmatic Mr. Tappau, who 
had married them, baptized their children, and was to them, 
literally, as a “pillar of the church.” So Mr. Nolan left 
Salem, carrying away with him, possibly, more hearts than 
that of Faith Hickson’s ; but certainly she had never been 
the same creature since. 

But now— Christmas, 1691— one or two of the older 
members of the congregation being dead, and some who 
were younger men having come to settle in Salem — Mr. 

149 


Lois the Witch 

Tappau being also older, and, some charitably supposed, 
wiser — a fresh effort had been made, and Mr. Nolan was 
returning to labour in ground apparently smoothed over. 
Lois had taken a keen interest in all the proceedings for 
Faith’s sake — far more than the latter did for herself, any 
spectator would have said. Faith’s wheel never went faster 
or slower, her thread never broke, her colour never came, 
her eyes were never uplifted with sudden interest, all the 
time these discussions respecting Mr. Nolan’s return were 
going on. But Lois, after the hint given by Prudence, had 
found a clue to many a sigh and look of despairing sorrow, 
even without the help of Nattee’s improvised songs, in which, 
under strange allegories, the helpless love of her favourite 
was told to ears heedless of all meaning, except those of 
the tender-hearted and sympathetic Lois. Occasionally, she 
heard a strange chant of the old Indian woman’s — half in 
her own language, half in broken English — droned over 
some simmering pipkin, from which the smell was, to say 
the least, unearthly. Once, on perceiving this odour in the 
keeping-room, Grace Hickson suddenly exclaimed — 

“ Nattee is at her heathen ways again ; we shall have 
some mischief unless she is stayed.” 

But Faith, moving quicker than ordinary, said something 
about putting a stop to it, and so forestalled her mother’s 
evident intention of going into the kitchen. Faith shut the 
door between the two rooms, and entered upon some remon- 
strance with Nattee ; but no one could hear the words used. 
Faith and Nattee seemed more bound together by love and 
common interest than any other two among the self-con- 
tained individuals comprising this household. Lois some- 
times felt as if her presence, as a third, interrupted some 
confidential talk between her cousin and the old servant. 
And yet she was fond of Faith, and could almost think that 
Faith liked her more than she did either mother, brother, or 
sister ; for the first two were indifferent as to any unspoken 
feelings, while Prudence delighted in discovering them, only 
to make an amusement to herself out of them. 

150 


Lois the Witch 

One day, Lois was sitting by herself at her sewing-table, 
while Faith and Nattee were holding one of their secret con- 
claves, from which Lois felt herself to be tacitly excluded : 
when the outer door opened, and a tall, pale young man, in 
the strict professional habit of a minister, entered. Lois 
sprang up with a smile and a look of welcome for Faith’s 
sake ; for this must be the Mr. Nolan whose name had been 
on the tongue of every one for days, and who was, as Lois 
knew, expected to arrive the day before. 

He seemed half-surprised at the glad alacrity with which 
he was received by this stranger : possibly, he had not heard 
of the English girl who was an inmate in the house where 
formerly he had seen only grave, solemn, rigid, or heavy 
faces, and had been received with a stiff form of welcome, 
very different from the blushing, smiling, dimpled looks that 
innocently met him with the greeting almost of an old 
acquaintance. Lois, having placed a chair for him, hastened 
out to call Faith, never doubting but that the feehng which 
her cousin entertained for the young pastor was mutual, 
although it might be unrecognised in its full depth by either. 

“ Faith ! ” said she, bright and breathless. “ Guess 

No,” checking herself to an assumed unconsciousness of any 
particular importance likely to be aJB&xed to her words ; “ Mr. 
Nolan, the new pastor, is in the keeping-room. He has 
asked for my aunt and Manasseh. My aunt is gone to the 
prayer-meeting at Pastor Tappau’s, and Manasseh is away.” 
Lois went on speaking, to give Faith time ; for the girl had 
become deadly white at the intelligence, while, at the same 
time, her eyes met the keen, cunning eyes of the old Indian 
with a peculiar look of half- wondering awe ; while Nattee’s 
looks expressed triumphant satisfaction. 

Go,” said Lois, smoothing Faith’s hair, and kissing the 
white, cold cheek, “ or he will wonder why no one comes to 
see him, and perhaps think he is not welcome.” Faith went 
without another word into the keeping-room, and shut the 
door of communication. Nattee and Lois were left together. 
Lois felt as happy as if some piece of good fortune had 

151 


Lois the Witch 

befallen herself. For the time, her growing dread: of 
Manasseh’s wild, ominous persistence in his suit, her aunt’s 
coldness, her own loneliness, were all forgotten, and she 
could almost have danced with joy. Nattee laughed aloud, 
and talked and chuckled to herself — “ Old Indian woman 
great mystery. Old Indian woman sent hither and thither ; 
go where she is told, where she hears with her ears. But 
old Indian woman ” — and here she drew herself up, and the 
expression of her face quite changed — “know how to call, 
and then white man must come ; and old Indian woman have 
spoken never a word, and white man have heard nothing 
with his ears.” So the old crone muttered. 

All this time, things were going on very differently in the 
keeping-room to what Lois imagined. Faith sat stiller even 
than usual; her eyes downcast, her words few. A quick 
observer might have noticed a certain tremulousness about 
her hands, and an occasional twitching throughout all her 
frame. But Pastor Nolan was not a keen observer upon 
this occasion ; he was absorbed with his own little wonders 
and perplexities. His wonder was that of a carnal man — 
who that pretty stranger might be. Who had seemed, on his 
first coming, so glad to see him, but had vanished instantly, 
apparently not to reappear. And, indeed, I am not sure if 
his perplexity was not that of a carnal man rather than that 
of a godly minister, for this was his dilemma. It was the 
custom of Salem (as we have already seen) for the minister, 
on entering a household for the visit which, among other 
people and in other times, would have been termed a 
“ morning call,” to put up a prayer for the eternal welfare 
of the family under whose roof -tree he was. Now this 
prayer was expected to be adapted to the individual character, 
joys, sorrows, wants, and failings of every member present ; 
and here was he, a young pastor, alone with a young woman ; 
and he thought — vain thoughts, perhaps, but still very 
natural — that the implied guesses at her character, involved 
in the minute supplications above described, would be very 
awkward in a tUe-a-tete prayer ; so, whether it was his wonder 

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Lois the Witch 

or his perplexity, I do not know, but he did not contribute 
much to the conversation for some time, and at last, by a 
sudden burst of courage and impromptu hit, he cut the 
Gordian knot by making the usual proposal for prayer, and 
adding to it a request that the household might be summoned. 
In came Lois, quiet and decorous ; in came Nattee, all one 
impassive, stiff piece of wood — no look of intelligence or trace 
of giggling near her countenance. Solemnly recalling each 
wandering thought. Pastor Nolan knelt in the midst of these 
three to pray. He was a good and truly religious man, whose 
name here is the only thing disguised, and played his part 
bravely in the awful trial to which he was afterwards sub- 
jected ; and if, at the time, before he went through his fiery 
persecutions, the human fancies which beset all young hearts 
came across his, we at this day know that these fancies are 
no sin. But now he prays in earnest, prays so heartily for 
himself, with such a sense of his own spiritual need and 
spiritual failings, that each one of his hearers feels as if a 
prayer and a supplication had gone up for each of them. 
Even Nattee muttered the few words she knew of the Lord’s 
Prayer; gibberish though the disjointed nouns and verbs 
might be, the poor creature said them because she was 
stirred to unwonted reverence. As for Lois, she rose up 
comforted and strengthened, as no special prayers of Pastor 
Tappau had ever made her feel. But Faith was sobbing, 
sobbing aloud, almost hysterically, and made no effort 4io 
rise, but lay on her outstretched arms spread out upon the 
settle. Lois and Pastor Nolan looked at each other for an 
instant. Then Lois said — 

“ Sir, you must go. My cousin has not been strong for 
some time, and doubtless she needs more quiet than she has 
had to-day.” 

Pastor Nolan bowed, and left the house ; but in a moment 
he returned. Half-opening the door, but without entering, 
he said — 

“ I come back to ask, if perchance I may call this evening 
to inquire how young Mistress Hickson finds herself ? ” 

153 


Lois the Witch 

But Faith did not hear this ; she was sobbing louder than 
ever. 

“ Why did you send him away, Lois ? I should have 
been better directly, and it is so long since I have seen him." 

She had her face hidden as she uttered these words, and 
Lois could not hear them distinctly. She bent her head 
down by her cousin’s on the settle, meaning to ask her to 
repeat what she had said. But in the irritation of the 
moment, and prompted possibly by some incipient jealousy. 
Faith pushed Lois away so violently that the latter was hurt 
against the hard, sharp corner of the wooden settle. Tears 
came into her eyes ; not so much because her cheek was 
bruised, as because of the surprised pain she felt at this 
repulse from the cousin towards whom she was feeling so 
warmly and kindly. Just for the moment, Lois was as 
angry as any child could have been ; but some of the words 
of Pastor Nolan’s prayer yet rang in her ears, and she thought 
it would be a shame if she did not let them sink into her 
heart. She dared not, however, stoop again to caress Faith, 
but stood quietly by her, sorrowfully waiting ; until a step at 
the outer door caused Faith to rise quickly, and rush into the 
kitchen, leaving Lois to bear the brunt of the new-comer. 
It was Manasseh, returned from hunting. He had been two 
days away, in company with other young men belonging to 
Salem. It was almost the only occupation which could draw 
him out of his secluded habits. He stopped suddenly at the 
door on seeing Lois, and alone ; for she had avoided him of 
late in every possible way. 

“ Where is my mother ? ’’ 

“ At a prayer-meeting at Pastor Tappau’s. She has taken 
Prudence. Faith has left the room this minute. I will call 
her." And Lois was going towards the kitchen, when he 
placed himself between her and the door. 

“ Lois,” said he, “ the time is going by, and I cannot 
wait much longer. The visions come thick upon me, and 
my sight grows clearer and clearer. Only this last night, 
camping out in the woods, I saw in my soul, between sleeping 

154 


Lois the Witch 

and waking, the spirit come and offer thee two lots ; and the 
colour of the one was white, like a bride’s, and the other was 
black and red, which is, being interpreted, a violent death. 
And, when . thou didst choose the latter, the spirit said unto 
me, ‘ Come ! ’ and I came, and did as I was bidden. I put 
it on thee with mine own hands, as it is pre-ordained, if thou 
wilt not hearken unto the voice and be my wife. And when 
the black and red dress fell to the ground, thou wert even as 
a corpse three days old. Now, be advised, Lois, in time ! 
Lois, my cousin, I have seen it in a vision, and my soul 
cleaveth unto thee — I would fain spare thee.” 

He was really in earnest — in passionate earnest ; what- 
ever his visions, as he called them, might be, he believed in 
them, and this belief gave something of unselfishness to his 
love for Lois. This she felt at this moment, if she had 
never done so before ; and it seemed hke a contrast to the 
repulse she had just met with from his sister. He had 
drawn near her, and now he took hold of her hand, repeat- 
ing in his wild, pathetic, dreamy way — 

“ And the voice said unto me, ‘ Marry Lois ! ’ ” And 
Lois was more inclined to soothe and reason with him than 
she had ever been before, since the first time of his speaking 
to her on the subject — ^when Grace Hickson and Prudence 
entered the room from the passage. They had returned 
from the prayer-meeting by the back-way, which had pre- 
vented the sound of their approach from being heard. 

But Manasseh did not stir or look round; he kept his 
eyes fixed on Lois, as if to note the effect of his words. 
Grace came hastily forwards and, lifting up her strong right 
arm, smote their joined hands in twain, in spite of the 
fervour of Manasseh’s grasp. 

“ What means this ? ” said she, addressing herself more 
to Lois than to her son, anger flashing out of her deep-set 
eyes. 

Lois waited for Manasseh to speak. He seemed, but a 
few minutes before, to be more gentle and less threatening 
than he had been of late on this subject, and she did not 

155 


Lois the Witch 

wish to irritate him. But he did not speak, and her aunt 
stood angrily waiting for an answer. 

“ At any rate,” thought Lois, “ it will put an end to the 
thought in his mind, when my aunt speaks out about it.” 

“ My cousin seeks me in marriage,” said Lois. 

“ Thee ! ” and Grace struck out in the direction of her 
niece with a gesture of supreme contempt. But now 
Manasseh spoke forth — 

“ Yea ! it is pre-ordained. The voice has said it, and the 
spirit has brought her to me as my bride.” 

“ Spirit ! an evil spirit then ! A good spirit would have 
chosen out for thee a godly maiden of thine own people, and 
not a prelatist and a stranger like this girl. A pretty return. 
Mistress Lois, for all our kindness ! ” 

“Indeed, Aunt Hickson, I have done all I could — 
Cousin Manasseh knows it — to show him I can be none of 
his. I have told him,” said she, blushing, but determined to 
say the whole out at once, “ that I am all but troth-plight to 
a young man of our own village at home ; and even putting 
all that on one side, I wish not for marriage at present.” 

“ Wish rather for conversion and regeneration ! Marriage 
is an unseemly word in the mouth of a maiden. As for 
Manasseh, I will take reason with him in private ; and, 
meanwhile, if thou hast spoken truly, throw not thyself in 
his path, as I have noticed thou hast done but too often 
of late.” 

Lois’s heart burnt within her at this unjust accusation,, 
for she knew how much she had dreaded and avoided her 
cousin, and she almost looked to him to give evidence that 
her aunt’s last words were not true. But, instead, he re- 
curred to his one fixed idea, and said — 

“ Mother, listen ! If I wed not Lois, both she and I die 
within the year. I care not for life; before this, as you 
know, I have sought for death ” (Grace shuddered, and was 
for a moment subdued by some recollection of past horror) ; 
“ but, if Lois were my wife, I should live, and she would be 
spared from what is the other lot. That whole vision grows 

156 


Lois the Witch 

clearer to me, day by day. Yet, when I try to know whether 
I am one of the elect, all is dark. The mystery of Free-Will 
and Fore-Knowledge is a mystery of Satan’s devising, not 
of God’s.” 

“ Alas, my son ! Satan is abroad among the brethren 
even now ; but let the old vexed topics rest ! Sooner than 
fret thyself again, thou shalt have Lois to be thy wife, 
though my heart was set far differently for thee.” 

“ No, Manasseh,” said Lois. “ I love you well as a 
cousin, but wife of yours I can never be. Aunt Hickson, it 
is not well to delude him so. I say, if ever I marry man, I 
am troth- phght to one in England.” 

“ Tush, child ! I am your guardian in my dead husband’s 
place. Thou thickest thyself so great a prize that I could 
clutch at thee whether or no, I doubt not. I value thee not, 
save as a medicine for Manasseh, if his mind get disturbed 
again, as I have noted signs of late.” 

This, then, was the secret explanation of much that had 
alarmed her in her cousin’s manner : and, if Lois had been a 
physician of modern times, she might have traced somewhat 
of the same temperament in his sisters as well — in Prudence’s 
lack of natural feeling and impish dehght in mischief, in 
Faith’s vehemence of unrequited love. But, as yet, Lois did 
not know, any more than Faith, that the attachment of the 
latter to Mr. Nolan was not merely unretumed, but even 
unperceived, by the young minister. 

He came, it is true — came often to the house, sat long 
with the family, and watched them narrowly, but took no 
especial notice of Faith. Lois perceived this, and grieved 
over it ; Nattee perceived it, and was indignant at it, long 
before Faith slowly acknowledged it to herself, and went to 
Nattee the Indian woman, rather thaji to Lois her cousin, 
for sympathy and counsel. 

“ He cares not for me,” said Faith. “ He cares more for 
Lois’s little finger than for my whole body,” the girl moaned 
out, in the bitter pain of' jealousy. 

“ Hush thee, hush thee, prairie-bird ! How can he build 

157 


Lois the Witch 

a nest, when the old bird has got all the moss and the 
feathers ? Wait till the Indian has found means to send the 
old bird flying far away.” This was the mysterious comfort 
Nattee gave. 

Grace Hickson took some kind of charge over Manasseh 
that relieved Lois of much of her distress at his strange be- 
haviour. Yet, at times, he escaped from his mother’s watch- 
fulness, and in such opportunities he would always seek 
Lois, entreating her, as of old, to marry him — sometimes 
pleading his love for her, oftener speaking wildly of his visions 
and the voices which he heard foretelling a terrible futurity. 

We have now to do with events which were taking place 
in Salem, beyond the narrow circle of the Hickson family ; 
but, as they only concern us in as far as they bore down in 
their consequences on the future of those who formed part of 
it, I shall go over the narrative very briefly. The town of 
Salem had lost by death, within a very short time preceding 
the commencement of my story, nearly all its venerable men 
and leading citizens — men of ripe wisdom and sound counsel. 
The people had hardly yet recovered from the shock of their 
loss, as one by one the patriarchs of the primitive little com- 
munity had rapidly followed each other to the grave. They 
had been beloved as fathers, and looked up to as judges in 
the land. The first bad effect of their loss was seen in the 
heated dissension which sprang up between Pastor Tappau 
and the candidate Nolan. It had been apparently healed 
over; but Mr. Nolan had not been many weeks in Salem, 
after his second coming, before the strife broke out afresh, 
and alienated many for life who had till then been bound 
together by the ties of friendship or relationship. Even in 
the Hickson family something of this feeling soon sprang 
up; Grace being a vehement partisan of the elder pastor’s 
more gloomy doctrines, while Faith was a passionate, if a 
powerless, advocate of Mr. Nolan. Manasseh’s growing 
absorption in his own fancies, and imagined gift of prophecy, 
making him comparatively indifferent to all outward events, 
did not tend to either the fulfilment of his visions, or the 

158 


Lois the Witch 

elucidation of the dark mysterious doctrines over which he 
had pondered too long for the health either of his mind or 
body ; while Prudence delighted in irritating every one by 
her advocacy of the views of thinking to which they were 
most opposed, and relating every gossiping story to the per- 
son most likely to disbelieve, and to be indignant at, what she 
told with an assumed unconsciousness of any such effect to 
be produced. There was much talk of the congregational 
difficulties and dissensions being carried up to the general 
court ; and each party naturally hoped that, if such were the 
course of events, the opposing pastor and that portion of the 
congregation which adhered to him might be worsted in the 
struggle. 

Such was the state of things in the township, when, one 
day towards the end of the month of February, Grace Hick- 
son returned from the weekly prayer-meeting, which it was 
her custom to attend at Pastor Tappau’s house, in a state of 
extreme excitement. On her entrance into her own house 
she sat down, rocking her body backwards and forwards, and 
praying to herself. Both Faith and Lois stopped their spin- 
ning, in wonder at her agitation, before either of them ven- 
tured to address her. At length Faith rose, and spoke — 

“ Mother, what is it ? Hath anything happened of any 
evil nature ? ” 

The brave, stem old woman’s face was blenched, and her 
eyes were almost set in horror, as she prayed; the great 
drops mnning down her cheeks. 

It seemed almost as if she had to make a struggle to 
recover her sense of the present homely accustomed life, 
before she could find words to answer — 

“ Evil nature ! Daughters, Satan is abroad — is close to us ; 
I have this very hour seen him afflict two innocent children, 
as of old he troubled those who were possessed by him in 
Judea. Hester and Abigail Tappau have been contorted and 
convulsed by him and his servants into such shapes as I am 
afeared to think on ; and when their father, godly Mr. Tappau, 
began to exhort and to pray, their howhngs were like the 

159 


Lois the Witch 

wild beasts of the field. Satan is of a truth let loose among 
us. The girls kept calling upon him, as if he were even then 
present among us. Abigail screeched out that he stood at 
my very back in the guise of a hlack man ; and truly, as I 
turned round at her words, I saw a creature like a shadow 
vanishing, and turned all of a cold sweat. Who knows 
where he is now ? Faith, lay straws across on the door-sill ! ” 
“ But, if he he already entered in,” asked Prudence, 
“ may not that make it difficult for him to depart ? ” 

Her mother, taking no notice of her question, went on 
rocking herself, and praying, till again she broke out into 
narration — 

“ Eeverend Mr. Tappau says, that only last night he 
heard a sound as of a heavy body dragged all through the 
house by some strong power; once it was thrown against 
his bedroom door, and would, doubtless, have broken it in, 
if he had not prayed fervently and aloud at that very time ; 
and a shriek went up at his prayer that made his hair stand 
on end ; and this morning all the crockery in the house was 
found broken and piled up in the middle of the kitchen floor ; 
and Pastor Tappau says that, as soon as he began to ask a 
blessing on the morning’s meal, Abigail and Hester cried 
out, as if some one was pinching them. Lord, have mercy 
upon us all I Satan is of a truth let loose.” 

“ They sound like the old stories I used to hear in 
Barford,” said Lois, breathless with affright. 

Faith seemed less alarmed; but then her dislike to 
Pastor Tappau was so great, that she could hardly sym- 
pathise with any misfortunes that befell him or his family. 

Towards evening Mr. Nolan came in. In general, so 
high did party spirit run, Grace Hickson only tolerated his 
visits, finding herself often engaged at such hours, and being 
too much abstracted in thought to show him the ready 
hospitality which was one of her most prominent virtues. 
But to-day, both as bringing the latest intelligence of the 
new horrors sprung up in Salem, and as being one of 
the Church, mihtant (or what the Puritans considered as 

i6o 


Lois the Witch 

equivalent to the Church militant) against Satan, he was 
welcomed by her in an unusual manner. 

He seemed oppressed with the occurrences of the day ; 
at first it appeared to be almost a relief to him to sit still, 
and cogitate upon them, and his hosts were becoming almost 
impatient for him to say something more than mere mono- 
syllables, when he began — 

“ Such a day as this I pray that I may never see again. 
It is as if the devils, whom our Lord banished into the herd 
of swine, had been permitted to come again upon the earth. 
And I would it were only the lost spirits who were torment- 
ing us; but I much fear that certain of those whom we 
have esteemed as God’s people have sold their souls to 
Satan, for the sake of a little of his evil power, whereby they 
may afflict others for a time. Elder Sherringham hath lost 
this very day a good and valuable horse, wherewith he used 
to drive his family to meeting.” 

“ Perchance,” said Lois, “ the horse died of some natural 
disease.” 

“ True,” said Pastor Nolan ; “ but I was going on to say, 
that, as he entered into his house, full of dolour at the loss 
of his beast, a mouse ran in before him so sudden that it 
almost tripped him up, though an instant before there was 
no such thing to be seen ; and he caught at it with his shoe 
and hit it, and it cried out like a human creature in pain, 
and straight ran up the chimney, caring nothing for the hot 
flame and smoke.” 

Manasseh listened greedily to all this story ; and, when it 
was ended he smote his breast, and prayed aloud for deliver- 
ance from the power of the Evil One ; and he continually 
went on praying at intervals through the evening, with 
every mark of abject terror on his face and in his manner 
— he, the bravest, most daring hunter in all the settlement. 
Indeed, all the family huddled together in silent fear, scarcely 
finding any interest in the usual household occupations. 
Faith and Lois sat with arms entwined, as in days before 
the former had become jealous of the latter ; Prudence 

i6i M 


Lois the Witch 

asked low, fearful questions of her mother and of the pastor 
as to the creatures that were abroad, and the ways in which 
they afflicted others ; and, when Grace besought the minister 
to pray for her and her household, he made a long and 
passionate supplication that none of that little flock might 
ever so far fall away into hopeless perdition as to be guilty 
of the sin without forgiveness — the Sin of Witchcraft. 


OHAPTEE III 

“ The Sin of Witchcraft.” We read about it, we look on it 
from the outside ; but we can hardly reahse the terror it 
induced. Every impulsive or unaccustomed action, every 
little nervous affection, every ache or pain was noticed, not 
merely by those around the sufferer, but by the person him- 
self, whoever he might be, that was acting, or being acted 
upon, in any but the most simple and ordinary manner. He 
or she (for it was most frequently a woman or girl that was 
the supposed subject) felt a desire for some unusual kind of 
food — some unusual motion or rest — her hand twitched, her 
foot was asleep, or her leg had the cramp ; and the dreadful 
question immediately suggested itself, “ Is any one pos- 
sessing an evil power over me ; by the help of Satan ? ” and 
perhaps they went on to think, “It is bad enough to feel 
that my body can be made to suffer through the power of 
some unknown evil-wisher to me ; but what if Satan gives 
them still further power, and they can touch my soul, and 
inspire me with loathful thoughts leading me into crimes 
which at present I abhor?” and so on, till the very dread 
of what might happen, and the constant dwelling of the 
thoughts, even with horror, upon certain possibihties, or 
what were esteemed such, really brought about the corrup- 
tion of imagination at last, which at first they had shuddered 
at. Moreover, there was a sort of uncertainty as to who 

162 


Lois the Witch 

might be infected — not unlike the overpowering dread of 
the plague, which made some shrink from their best-beloved 
with irrepressible fear. The brother or sister, who was the 
dearest friend of their childhood and youth, might now be 
bound in some mysterious deadly pact with evil spirits of 
the most horrible kind — who could tell? And in such a 
case it became a duty, a sacred duty, to give up the earthly 
body which had been once so loved, but which was now the 
habitation of a soul corrupt and horrible in its evil inclina- 
tions. Possibly, terror of death might bring on confession, 
and repentance, and purification. Or if it did not, why, 
away with the evil creature, the witch, out of the world, 
down to the kingdom of the master, whose bidding was done 
on earth in all manner of corruption and torture of God’s 
creatures ! There were others who, to these more simple, if 
more ignorant, feelings of horror at witches and witchcraft, 
added the desire, conscious or unconscious, of revenge *on 
those whose conduct had been in any way displeasing to 
them. Where evidence takes a supernatural character, there 
is no disproving it. This argument comes up : “ You have 
only the natural powers ; I have supernatural. You admit 
the existence of the supernatural by the condemnation of 
this very crime of witchcraft. You hardly know the limits 
of the natural powers ; how, then, can you define the super- 
natural ? I say that in the dead of night, when my body 
seemed to all present to be lying in quiet sleep, I was, in 
the most complete and wakeful consciousness, present in 
my body at an assembly of witches and wizards, with Satan 
at their head ; that I was by them tortured in my body, 
because my soul would not acknowledge him as its king; 
and that I witnessed such and such deeds. What the nature 
of the appearance was that took the semblance of myself, 
sleeping quietly in my bed, I know not; but, admitting, as 
you do, the possibility of witchcraft, you cannot disprove my 
evidence.” The evidence might be given truly or falsely, 
as the person witnessing believed it or not ; but every one 
must see what immense and terrible power was abroad for 

163 


Lois the Witch 

revenge. Then, again, the accused themselves ministered 
to the horrible panic abroad. Some, in dread of death, con- 
fessed from cowardice to the imaginary crimes of which 
they were accused, and of which they were promised a 
pardon on confession. Some, weak and terrified, came 
honestly to believe in their own guilt, through the diseases 
of imagination which were sure to be engendered at such a 
time as this. 

Lois sat spinning with Faith. Both were silent, ponder- 
ing over the stories that were abroad. Lois spoke first. 

“ Oh, Faith ! this country is worse than ever England was, 
even in the days of Master Matthew Hopkinson, the witch- 
finder. I grow frightened of every one, I think. I even get 
af eared sometimes of Nattee I ” 

Faith coloured a little. Then she asked — 

“Why? What should make you distrust the Indian 
woman ? ” 

“ Oh ! I am ashamed of my fear as soon as it arises in 
my mind. But, you know, her look and colour were strange 
to me when I first came ; and she is not a christened woman ; 
and they tell stories of Indian wizards; and I know not 
what the mixtures are which she is sometimes stirring over 
the fire, nor the meaning of the strange chants she sings to 
herself. And once I met her in the dusk, just close by 
Pastor Tappau’s house, in company with Hota, his servant — 
it was just before we heard of the sore disturbance in his 
house — and I have wondered if she had aught to do with it.” 

Faith sat very still, as if thinking. At last she said — 

“ If Nattee has powers beyond what you and I have, 
she will not use them for evil; at least not evil to those 
whom she loves.” 

“ That comforts me but little,” said Lois. “ If she has 
powers beyond what she ought to have, I dread her, though 
I have done her no evil; nay, though I could almost say 
she bore me a kindly feeling. But such powers are only 
given by the Evil One; and the proof thereof is, that, as 
you imply, Nattee would use them on those who offend her.” 

164 


Lois the Witch 

“And why should she not?” asked Faith, lifting her 
eyes, and flashing heavy fire out of them, at the question. 

“Because,” said Lois, not seeing Faith’s glance, “we 
are told to pray for them that despitefully use us, and to do 
good to them that persecute us. But poor Nattee is not a 
christened woman. I would that Mr. Nolan would baptize 
her : it would, maybe, take her out of the power of Satan’s 
temptations.” 

“ Are you never tempted ? ” asked Faith half- scornfully ; 
“ and yet I doubt not you were well baptized ! ” 

“ True,” said Lois sadly ; “I often do very wrong ; but, 
perhaps, I might have done worse, if the holy form had not 
been observed.” 

They were again silent for a time. 

“ Lois,” said Faith, “ I did not mean any offence. But 
do you never feel as if you would give up all that future life, 
of which the parsons talk, and which seems so vague and 
so distant, for a few years of real, vivid blessedness, to begin 
to-morrow — this hour — this minute? Oh! I could think 
of happiness for which I would wilhngly give up all those 
misty chances of heaven ” 

“ Faith, Faith I ” cried Lois in terror, holding her hand 
before her cousin’s mouth, and looking around in fright. 
“ Hush 1 you know not who may be listening ; you are 
putting yourself in his power.” 

But Faith pushed her hand away, and said, “Lois, I 
believe in him no more than I believe in heaven. Both may 
exist ; but they are so far away that I defy them. Why all 
this ado about Mr. Tappau’s house — promise me never do 
tell living creature, and I will tell you a secret.” 

“ No ! ” said Lois, terrified. “ I dread all secrets. I 
will hear none. I will do all that I can for you. Cousin 
Faith, in any way ; but just at this time, I strive to keep 
my life and thoughts within the strictest bounds of godly 
simplicity, and I dread pledging myself to aught that is 
hidden and secret.” 

“ As you will, cowardly girl, full of terrors, which, if you 
165 


Lois the Witch 

had listened to me, might have been lessened, if not entirely 
done away with.” And Faith would not utter another word, 
though Lois tried meekly to entice her into conversation on 
some other subject. 

The rumour of witchcraft was like the echo of thunder 
among the hills. It had broken out in Mr. Tappau’s house, 
and his two little daughters were the first supposed to be 
bewitched ; but round about, from every quarter of the town, 
came in accounts of sufferers by witchcraft. There was hardly 
a family without one of these supposed victims. Then arose 
a growl and menaces of vengeance from many a household — 
menaces deepened, not daunted, by the terror and mystery 
of the suffering that gave rise to them. 

At length a day was appointed when, after solemn fasting 
and prayer, Mr. Tappau invited the neighbouring ministers 
and all godly people to assemble at his house, and unite with 
him in devoting a day to solemn religious services, and to 
supplication for the deliverance of his children, and those 
similarly afflicted, from the power of the Evil One. All 
Salem poured out towards the house of the minister. There 
was a look of excitement on all their faces ; eagerness and 
horror were depicted on many, while stem resolution, 
amounting to determined cruelty, if the occasion arose, was 
seen on others. 

In the midst of the prayer, Hester Tappau, the younger 
girl, fell into convulsions ; fit after fit came on, and her 
screams mingled with the shrieks and cries of the assembled 
congregation. In the first pause, when the child was 
partially recovered, when the people stood around, exhausted 
and breathless, her father, the Pastor Tappau, lifted his right 
hand, and adjured her, in the name of the Trinity, to say 
who tormented her. There was a dead silence ; not a 
creature stirred of all those hundreds. Hester turned 
wearily and uneasily, and moaned out the name of Hota, 
her father’s Indian servant. Hota was present, apparently 
as much interested as any one ; indeed, she had been busy- 
ing herself much in bringing remedies to the suffering child. 

1 66 


Lois the Witch 

But now she stood aghast, transfixed, while her name was 
caught up and shouted out in tones of reprobation and 
hatred by all the crowd around her. Another moment, and 
they would have fallen upon the trembling creature and tom 
her limb from limb — pale, dusky, shivering Hota, half guilty- 
looking from her very bewilderment. But Pastor Tappau, 
that gaunt, grey man, lifting himself to his utmost height, 
signed to them to go back, to keep still while he addressed 
them ; and then he told them that instant vengeance was 
not just, deliberate punishment ; that there would be need 
of conviction, perchance of confession ; he hoped for some 
redress for his suffering children from her revelations, if she 
were brought to confession. They must leave the culprit in 
his hands, and in those of his brother ministers, that they 
might wrestle with Satan before delivering her up to the 
civil power. He spoke well; for he spoke from the heart 
of a father seeing his children exposed to dreadful and 
mysterious suffering, and firmly believing that he now held 
the clue in his hand which should ultimately release them 
and their fellow-sufferers. And the congregation moaned 
themselves into unsatisfied submission, and listened to his 
long, passionate prayer, which he uplifted even while the 
hapless Hota stood there, guarded and bound by two 
men, who glared at her like blood-hounds ready to slip, 
even while the prayer ended in the words of the merciful 
Saviour. 

Lois sickened and shuddered at the whole scene ; and 
this was no intellectual shuddering at the folly and super- 
stition of the people, but tender moral shuddering at the 
sight of guilt which she believed in, and at the evidence of 
men’s hatred and abhorrence, which, when shown even to 
the guilty, troubled and distressed her merciful heart. She 
followed her aunt and cousins out into the open air, with 
downcast eyes and pale face. Grace Hickson was going 
home with a feeling of triumphant relief at the detection 
of the guilty one. Faith alone seemed uneasy and dis- 
turbed beyond her wont ; for Manasseh received the whole 

167 


Lois the Witch 

transaction as the fulfilment of a prophecy, and Prudence 
was excited by the novel scene into a state of discordant 
high spirits. 

“ I am quite as old as Hester Tappau,” said she ; “ her 
birthday is in September and mine in October. ” 

“ What has that to do with it ? ” said Faith sharply. 

“ Nothing ; only she seemed such a little thing for all 
those grave ministers to be praying for, and so many folk 
come from a distance ; some from Boston, they said, all for 
her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. 
Henwick that held her head when she wriggled so, and old 
Madam Holbrook had herself helped up on a chair to see the 
better ? I wonder how long I might wriggle, before great and 
godly folk would take so much notice of me ? But, I sup- 
pose, that comes of being a pastor’s daughter. She’ll be so 
set up, there’ll be no speaking to her now. Faith ! thinkest 
thou that Hota really had bewitched her? She gave me 
corn-cakes the last time I was at Pastor Tappau’s, just like 
any other woman, only, perchance, a trifle more good- 
natured ; and to think of her being a witch after all ! ” 

But Faith seemed in a hurry to reach home, and paid no 
attention to Prudence’s talking. Lois hastened on with Faith; 
for Manasseh was walking alongside of his mother, and she 
kept steady to her plan of avoiding him, even though she 
pressed her company upon Faith, who had seemed of late 
desirous of avoiding her. 

That evening the news spread through Salem, that Hota 
had confessed her sin — had acknowledged that she was a 
witch. Nattee was the first to hear the intelligence. She 
broke into the room where the girls were sitting with Grace 
Hickson, solemnly doing nothing, because of the great prayer- 
meeting in the morning, and cried out, “ Mercy, mercy, 
mistress, everybody ! take care of poor Indian Nattee, who 
never do wrong, but for mistress and the family ! Hota one 
bad, wicked witch ; she say so herself ; oh, me ! oh, me ! ” 
and, stooping over Faith, she said something in a low, miser- 
able tone of voice, of which Lois only heard the word 

1 68 


Lois the Witch 

* torture.” But Faith heard all, and, turning very pale, 
half- accompanied, half-led Nattee back to her kitchen. 

Presently, Grace Hickson came in. She had been out to 
see a neighbour : it will not do to say that so godly a woman 
had been gossiping; and, indeed, the subject of the con- 
versation she had held was of too serious and momentous a 
nature for me to employ a light word to designate it. There 
was all the listening to, and repeating of, small details and 
rumours, in which the speakers have no concern, that con- 
stitutes gossiping ; but, in this instance, all trivial facts and 
speeches might be considered to bear such dreadful signifi- 
cance, and might have so ghastly an ending, that such 
whispers were occasionally raised to a tragic importance. 
Every fragment of intelligence that related to Mr. Tappau’s 
household was eagerly snatched at : how his dog howled all 
one long night through, and could not be stilled ; how his 
cow suddenly failed in her milk, only two months after she 
had calved ; how his memory had forsaken him one morn- 
ing, for a minute or two, in repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and 
he had even omitted a clause thereof in his sudden perturba- 
tion ; and how all these forerunners of his children’s strange 
illness might now be interpreted and understood — this had 
formed the staple of the conversation between Grace Hickson 
and her friends. There had arisen a dispute among them at 
last, as to how far these subjections to the power of the Evil 
One were to be considered as a judgment upon Pastor Tappau 
for some sin on his part; and if so, what? It was not 
an unpleasant discussion, although there was considerable 
difference of opinion ; for, as none of the speakers had had 
their families so troubled, it was rather a proof that they 
had none of them committed any sin. In the midst of this 
talk, one, entering in from the street, brought the news that 
Hota had confessed all — had owned to signing a certain little 
red book which Satan had presented to her — had been present 
at impious sacraments — had ridden through the air to New- 
bury Falls — and, in fact, had assented to all the questions 
which the elders and magistrates, carefully reading over the 

169 


Lois the Witch 

confessions of the witches who had formerly been tried in 
England, in order that they might not omit a single inquiry, 
had asked of her. More she had owned to, but things of 
inferior importance, and partaking more of the nature of 
earthly tricks than of spiritual power. She had spoken 
of carefully-adjusted strings, by which all the crockery in 
Pastor Tappau’s house could be pulled down or disturbed ; 
but of such intelhgible malpractices the gossips of Salem 
took httle heed. One of them said that such an action 
showed Satan’s prompting ; but they all preferred to listen 
to the grander guilt of the blasphemous sacraments and 
supernatural rides. The narrator ended with saying that 
Hota was to be hung the next morning, in spite of her 
confession, even although her life had been promised to her 
if she acknowledged her sin ; for it was well to make an 
example of the first-discovered witch, and it was also well 
that she was an Indian, a heathen, whose life would be no 
great loss to the community. Grace Hickson on this spoke 
out. It was well that witches should perish off the face of 
the earth, Indian or English, heathen or, worse, a baptized 
Christian who had betrayed the Lord, even as Judas did, 
and had gone over to Satan. For her part, she wished that 
the first- discovered witch had been a member of a godly 
English household, that it might be seen of all men that 
religious folk were willing to cut off the right hand, and 
pluck out the right eye, if tainted with the devilish sin. She 
spoke sternly and well. The last comer said that her words 
might be brought to the proof, for it had been whispered 
that Hota had named others, and some from the most re- 
ligious families of Salem, whom she had seen among the 
unholy communicants at the sacraments of the Evil One. 
And Grace replied that she would answer for it, all godly 
folk would stand the proof, and quench all natural affection 
rather than that such a sin should grow and spread among 
them. She herself had a weak bodily dread of witnessing 
the violent death even of an animal ; but she would not let 
that deter her from standing amidst those who cast the 

170 


Lois the Witch 

accursed creature out from among them on the morrow 
morning. 

Contrary to her wont, Grace Hickson told her family 
much of this conversation. It was a sign of her excitement 
on the subject that she thus spoke, and the excitement 
spread in different forms through her family. Faith was 
flushed and restless, wandering between the keeping-room 
and the kitchen, and questioning her mother particularly as 
to the more extraordinary parts of Hota’s confession, as if 
she wished to satisfy herself that the Indian witch had really 
done those horrible and mysterious deeds. 

Lois shivered and trembled with affright at the narration, 
and at the idea that such things were possible. Occasionally 
she found herself wandering off into sympathetic thought for 
the woman who was to die, abhorred of all men, and un- 
pardoned by God, to whom she had been so fearful a traitor, 
and who was now, at this very time — when Lois sat among 
her kindred by the warm and cheerful firelight, anticipating 
many peaceful, perchance happy, morrows — solitary, shiver- 
ing, panic-stricken, guilty, with none to stand by her and 
exhort her, shut up in darkness between the cold walls of 
the town prison. But Lois almost shrank from sympathising 
with so loathsome an accomplice of Satan, and prayed for 
forgiveness for her charitable thought; and yet, again, she 
remembered the tender spirit of the Saviour, and allowed 
herself to fall into pity, till at last her sense of right and 
wrong became so bewildered that she could only leave all to 
God’s disposal, and just ask that he would take all creatures 
and all events into His hands. 

Prudence was as bright as if she were listening to some 
merry story — curious as to more than her mother would tell 
her — seeming to have no particular terror of witches or witch- 
craft, and yet to be especially desirous to accompany her 
mother the next morning to the hanging. Lois shrank from 
the cruel, eager face of the young girl, as she begged her 
mother to allow her to go. Even Grace was disturbed and 
perplexed by her daughter’s pertinacity. 

171 


Lois the Witch 

“ No,” said she. Ask me no more ! Thou shalt not go. 
Such sights are not for the young. I go, and I sicken at the 
thoughts of it. But I go to show that I, a Christian woman, 
take God’s part against the devil’s. Thou shalt not go, I tell 
thee. I could whip thee for thinking of it.” 

“Manasseh says Hota was well whipped by Pastor 
Tappau ere she was brought to confession, said Prudence, 
as if anxious to change the subject of discussion. 

Manasseh hfted up his head from the great foHo Bible, 
brought by his father from England, which he was studying. 
He had not heard what Prudence said, but he looked up at 
the sound of his name. All present were startled at his wild 
eyes, his bloodless face. But he was evidently annoyed at 
the expression of their countenaces. 

“ Why look ye at me in that manner ? ” asked he. And 
his manner was anxious and agitated. His mother made 
haste to speak — 

“Tt was but that Prudence said something that thou hast 
told her — that Pastor Tappau defiled his hands by whipping 
the witch Hota. What evil thought has got hold of thee ? 
Talk to us, and crack not thy skull against the learning of 
man.” 

“It is not the learning of man that I study; it is the 
Word of God. I would fain know more of the nature of this 
sin of witchcraft, and whether it be, indeed, the unpardonable 
sin against the Holy Ghost. At times I feel a creeping 
influence coming over me, prompting all evil thoughts and 
unheard-of deeds, and I question within myself, ‘ Is not this 
the power of witchcraft ? ’ and I sicken, and loathe all that I 
do or say; and yet some evil creature hath the mastery 
over me, and I must needs do and say what I loathe and 
dread. Why wonder you, mother, that I, of all men, strive 
to learn the exact nature of witchcraft, and for that end study 
the Word of God? Have you not seen me when I was, as 
it were, possessed with a devil ? ” 

He spoke calmly, sadly, but as under deep conviction. 
His mother rose to comfort him. 

172 


Lois the Witch 

“ My son,” she said, “ no one ever saw thee do deeds, or 
heard thee utter words, which any one could say were 
prompted by devils. We have seen thee, poor lad, with thy 
wits gone astray for a time ; but all thy thoughts sought 
rather God’s will in forbidden places, than lost the clue to 
them for one moment in hankering after the powers of dark- 
ness. Those days are long past ; a future hes before thee. 
Think not of witches, or of being subject to the power of 
witchcraft. I did evil to speak of it before thee. Let Lois 
come and sit by thee, and talk to thee.” 

Lois went to her cousin, grieved at heart for his depressed 
state of mind, anxious to soothe and comfort him, and yet 
recoiling more than ever from the idea of ultimately becoming 
his wife — an idea to which she saw her aunt reconcihng 
herself imconsciously day by day, as she perceived the 
English girl’s power of soothing and comforting her cousin, 
even by the very tones of her sweet cooing voice. 

He took Lois’s hand. 

“ Let me hold it ! It does me good,” said he. “ Ah, Lois, 
when I am by you, I forget aU my troubles — will the day 
never come when you will hsten to the voice that speaks to 
me continually ? ” 

“I never hear it. Cousin Manasseh,” she said softly; 
“ but do not think of the voices. Tell me of the land you 
hope to enclose from the forest — what manner of trees grow 
on it?” 

Thus, by simple questions on practical affairs, she led him 
back, in her unconscious wisdom, to the subjects on which he 
had always shown strong practical sense. He talked on these, 
with all due discretion, till the hour for family prayer came 
round, which was early in those days. It was Manasseh’s 
place to conduct it, as head of the family ; a post which his 
mother had always been anxious to assign to him since her 
husband’s death. He prayed extempore, and to-night his 
suppUcations wandered off into wild, unconnected fragments 
of prayer, which all those kneeling around began, each 
according to her anxiety for the speaker, to think would 

m 


Lois the Witch 

never end. Minutes elapsed, and grew to quarters of an 
hour, and his words only became more emphatic and wilder, 
praying for himself alone, and laying bare the recesses of his 
heart. At length his mother rose, and took Lois by the 
hand; for she had faith in Lois’s power over her son, as 
being akin to that which the shepherd David, playing on his 
harp, had over king Saul sitting on his throne. She drew 
her towards him, where he knelt facing into the circle, with 
his eyes upturned, and the tranced agony of his face depicting 
the struggle of the troubled soul within. 

“ Here is Lois,” said Grace, almost tenderly ; “ she would 
fain go to her chamber.” (Down the girl’s face the tears 
were streaming.) “Eise, and finish thy prayer in thy 
closet.” 

But at Lois’s approach he sprang to his feet — sprang 
aside. 

“ Take her away, mother ! Lead me not into temptation ! 
She brings me evil and sinful thoughts. She overshadows 
me, even in the presence of my God. She is no angel of 
light, or she would not do this. She troubles me with the 
sound of a voice bidding me marry her, even when I am at 
my prayers. Avaunt ! Take her away ! ” 

He would have struck at Lois, if she had not shrunk back, 
dismayed and affrighted. His mother, although equally dis- 
mayed, was not affrighted. She had seen him thus before,* 
and understood the management of his paroxysm. 

“ Go, Lois ! the sight of thee irritates him, as once that 
of Faith did. Leave him to me ! ” 

And Lois rushed away to her room, and threw herself on 
her bed, like a panting, hunted creature. Faith came after 
her slowly and heavily. 

“ Lois,” said she, “ wilt thou do me a favour ? It is not 
much to ask. Wilt thou arise before daylight, and bear this 
letter from me to Pastor Nolan’s lodgings ? I would have 
done it myself ; but mother has bidden me to come to her, 
and I may be detained until the time when Hota is to be 
hung ; and the letter tells of matters pertaining to life and 

174 


Lois the Witch 

death. Seek out Pastor Nolan, wherever he may be, and 
have speech of him after he has read the letter.” 

“ Cannot Nattee take it ? ” asked Lois. 

“ No ! ” Faith answered fiercely. “ Why should she ? ” 

But Lois did not reply. A quick suspicion darted through 
Faith’s mind, sudden as hghtning. It had never entered 
there before. 

“ Speak, Lois ! I read thy thoughts. Thou would’st fain 
not be the bearer of this letter? ” 

“ I will take it,” said Lois meekly. “ It concerns life and 
death, you say ? ” 

“ Yes ! ” said Faith, in quite a different tone of voice. 
But, after a pause of thought, she added : “ Then, as soon as 
the house is still, I will write what I have to say, and leave 
it here on this chest ; and thou wilt promise me to take it 
before the day is fully up, while there is yet time for action.” 

“ Yes ; I promise,” said Lois. And Faith knew enough 
of her to feel sure that the deed would be done, however 
reluctantly. 

The letter was written — laid on the chest ; and, ere day 
dawned, Lois was astir. Faith watching her from between 
her half-closed eyehds — eyelids that had never been fully 
closed in sleep the livelong night. The instant Lois, cloaked 
and hooded, left the room. Faith sprang up, and prepared to 
go to her mother, whom she heard already stirring. Nearly 
every one in Salem was awake and up on this awful morn- 
ing, though few were out-of-doors, as Lois passed along the 
streets. Here was the hastily* erected gallows, the black 
shadow of which fell across the street with ghastly signifi- 
cance; now she had to pass the iron-barred gaol, through 
the unglazed windows of which she heard the fearful cry of 
a woman, and the sound of many footsteps. On she sped, 
sick almost to faintness, to the widow woman’s where Mr. 
Nolan lodged. He was already up and abroad, gone, his 
hostess believed, to the gaol. Thither Lois, repeating the 
words “ for life and for death ! ” was forced to go. Eetracing 
her steps, she was thankful to see him come out of those 

175 


Lois the Witch 

dismal portals, rendered more dismal for being in heavy 
shadow, just as she approached. What his errand had been 
she knew not; hut he looked grave and sad, as she put 
Faith’s letter into his hands, and stood before him quietly 
waiting until he should read it, and deliver the expected 
answer. But, instead of opening it, he hid it in his hand, 
apparently absorbed in thought. At last he spoke aloud, 
but more to himself than to her — 

“ My God ! and is she, then, to die in this fearful 
delirium ? It must be — can be — only delirium, that prompts 
such wild and horrible confessions. Mistress Barclay, I 
come from the presence of the Indian woman appointed to 
die. It seems, she considered herself betrayed last evening 
by her sentence not being respited, even after she had made 
confession of sin enough to bring down fire from heaven ; 
and, it seems to me, the passionate, impotent anger of this 
helpless creature has turned to madness, for she appals me 
by the additional revelations she has made to the keepers 
during the night — to me this morning. I could almost fancy 
that she thinks, by deepening the guilt she confesses, to 
escape this last dread punishment of all ; as if, were a tithe 
of what she says true, one could suffer such a sinner to five ! 
Yet to send her to death in such a state of mad terror! 
What is to be done ? ” 

“ Yet Scripture says that we are not to suffer witches in 
the land,” said Lois slowly. 

“ True ; I would but ask for a respite, till the prayers of 
God’s people had gone up for His mercy. Some would pray 
for her, poor wretch as she is. You would, Mistress Barclay, 
I am sure ? ” But he said it in a questioning tone. 

“ I have been praying for her in the night many a time,” 
said Lois, in a low voice. “ I pray for her in my heart at 
this moment ; I suppose they are bidden to put her out of 
the land, but I would not have her entirely God-forsaken. 
But, sir, you have not read my cousin’s letter. And she 
bade me bring back an answer with much urgency.” 

Still he delayed. He was thinking of the dreadful 
176 


Lois the Witch 

confession he came from hearing. If it were true, the beauti- 
ful earth was a polluted place, and he almost wished to die, 
to escape from such pollution, into the white innocence of 
those who stood in the presence of God. 

Suddenly his eyes fell on Lois’s pure, grave face, upturned 
and watching his. Faith in earthly goodness came over his 
soul in that instant, “ and he blessed her unaware.” 

He put his hand on her shoulder, with an action half 
paternal — although the difference in their ages was not above 
a dozen years — and, bending a httle towards her, whispered, 
half to himself, “ Mistress Barclay, you have done me good.” 

“ I ! ” said Lois, half-affrighted ; “ I done you good ! 
How ? ” 

“ By being what you are. But, perhaps, I should rather 
thank God, who sent you at the very moment when my soul 
was so disquieted.” 

At this instant, they were aware of Faith standing in 
front of them, with a countenance of thunder. Her angry 
look made Lois feel guilty. She had not enough urged the 
pastor to read his letter, she thought ; and it was indignation 
at this delay in what she had been commissioned to do with 
the urgency of life or death, that made her cousin lower at 
her so from beneath her straight black brows. Lois ex- 
plained how she had not found Mr. Nolan at his lodgings, 
and had had to follow him to the door of the gaol. But 
Faith replied, with obdurate contempt — 

“ Spare thy breath. Cousin Lois ! It is easy seeing on 
what pleasant matters thou and the Pastor Nolan were 
talking. I marvel not at thy forgetfulness. My mind is 
changed. Give me back my letter, sir ; it was about a poor 
matter — an old woman’s life. And what is that compared 
to a young girl’s love ? ” 

Lois heard but for an instant ; did not understand that 
her cousin, in her jealous anger, could suspect the existence 
of such a feeling as love between her and Mr. Nolan. No 
imagination as to its possibility had ever entered her mind ; 
she had respected him, almost revered him — nay, had liked 

177 N 


Lois the Witch 

him as the probable husband of Faith. At the thought that 
her cousin could believe her guilty of such treachery, her 
grave eyes dilated, and fixed themselves on the flaming 
countenance of Faith. That serious, unprotesting manner 
of perfect innocence must have told on her accuser, had it 
not been that, at the same instant, the latter caught sight of 
the crimsoned and disturbed countenance of the pastor, who 
felt the veil rent off the unconscious secret of his heart. 
Faith snatched her letter out of his hands, and said — 

“ Let the witch hang ! What care I ? She has done 
harm enough with her charms and her sorcery on Pastor 
Tappau’s girls. Let her die, and let all other witches look 
to themselves ; for there be many kinds of witchcraft abroad. 
Cousin Lois, thou wilt like best to stop with Pastor Nolan, 
or I would pray thee to come back with me to breakfast.” 

Lois was not to be daunted by jealous sarcasm. She 
held out her hand to Pastor Nolan, determined to take no 
heed of her cousin’s mad words, but to bid him farewell in 
her accustomed manner. He hesitated before taking it; 
and, when he did, it was with a convulsive squeeze that 
almost made her start. Faith waited and watched all, with 
set lips and vengeful eyes. She bade no farewell ; she spake 
no word ; but, grasping Lois tightly by the back of the arm, 
she almost drove her before her down the street till they 
reached their home. 

The arrangement for the morning was this : Grace 
Hickson and her son Manasseh were to be present at the 
hanging of the first witch executed in Salem, as pious and 
godly heads of a family. All the other members were strictly 
forbidden to stir out, until such time as the low-tolling bell 
announced that all was over in this world for Hota, the 
Indian witch. When the- execution was ended, there was 
to be a solemn prayer-meeting of all the inhabitants of 
Salem ; ministers had come from a distance to aid by the 
efficacy of their prayers in these efforts to purge the land 
of the devil and his servants. There was reason to think 
that the great old meeting-house would be crowded; and, 

178 


Lois the Witch 

when Faith and Lois reached home, Grace Hickson was 
giving her directions to Prudence, urging her to be ready 
for an early start to that place. The stern old woman was 
troubled in her mind at the anticipation of the sight she 
was to see, before many minutes were over, and spoke in 
a more hurried and incoherent manner than was her Wont. 
She was dressed in her Sunday best ; but her face was very 
grey and colourless, and she seemed afraid to cease speak- 
ing about household affairs, for fear she should have time 
to think. Manasseh stood by her, perfectly, rigidly still; 
he also was in his Sunday clothes. His face, too, was paler 
than its wont ; but it wore a kind of absent, rapt expression, 
almost like that of a man who sees a vision. As Faith 
entered, still holding Lois in her fierce grasp, Manasseh 
started and smiled, but still dreamily. His manner was so 
peculiar that even his mother stayed her talking to observe 
him more closely ; he was in that state of excitement which 
usually ended in what his mother and certain of her friends 
esteemed a prophetic revelation. He began to speak, at 
first very low, and then his voice increased in power. 

“ How beautiful is the land of Beulah, far over the sea, 
beyond the mountains ! Thither the angels carry her, lying 
back in their arms like one fainting. They shall kiss away 
the black circle of death, and lay her down at the feet of the 
Lamb. I hear her pleading there for those on earth who 
consented to her death. O Lois ! pray also for me, pray for 
me, miserable ! ” 

When he uttered his cousin’s name all their eyes turned 
towards her. It was to her that his vision related! She 
stood among them, amazed, awe-stricken, but not like one 
affrighted or dismayed. She was the first to speak — 

“ Dear friends, do not think of me ; his words may or 
may not be true. I am in God’s hands all the same, 
whether he have the gift of prophecy or not. Besides, hear 
you not that I end where all would fain end? Think of 
him, and of his needs 1 Such times as these always leave 
him exhausted and weary, and he comes out of them.” 

179 


Lois the Witch 

And she busied herself in cares for his refreshment, aid- 
ing her aunt’s trembling hands to set before him the requisite 
food, as he now sat tired and bewildered, gathering together 
with difficulty his scattered senses. 

Prudence did all she could to assist and speed their de- 
parture. But Faith stood apart, watching in silence with 
her passionate, angry eyes. 

As soon as they had set out on their solemn, fatal errand. 
Faith left the room. She had not tasted food or touched 
drink. Indeed, they all felt sick at heart. The moment 
her sister had gone upstairs. Prudence sprang to the settle 
on which Lois had thrown down her cloak and hood — 

Lend me your muffles and mantle. Cousin Lois. I 
never yet saw a woman hanged, and I see not why I should 
not go. I will stand on the edge of the crowd ; no one will 
know me, and I will be home long before my mother.” 

“ No ! ” said Lois, “ that may not be. My aunt would 
be sore displeased. I wonder at you. Prudence, seeking to 
witness such a sight.” And as she spoke she held fast her 
cloak, which Prudence vehemently struggled for. 

Faith returned, brought back possibly by the sound of 
the struggle. She smiled — a deadly smile. 

“ Give it up. Prudence. Strive no more with her. She 
has bought success in this world, and we are but her 
slaves.” 

“ Oh, Faith ! ” said Lois, relinquishing her hold of the 
cloak, and turning round with passionate reproach in her 
look and voice, “ what have I done that you should speak 
so of me: you, that I have loved as I think one loves a 
sister ? ” 

Prudence did not lose her opportunity, but hastily arrayed 
herself in the mantle, which was too large for her, and which 
she had, therefore, considered as well adapted for conceal- 
ment ; but, as she went towards the door, her feet became 
entangled in the unusual length, and she fell, bruising her 
arm pretty sharply. 

“ Take care, another time, how you meddle with a witch’s 
i8o 


Lois the Witch 

things, said Faith, as one scarcely believing her own words, 
but at enmity with all the world in her bitter jealousy of heart. 
Prudence rubbed her arm, and looked stealthily at Lois. 

“ Witch Lois ! Witch Lois ! ” said she at last, softly, 
pulling a childish face of spite at her. 

“Oh, hush. Prudence! Do not bandy such terrible 
words ! Let me look at thine arm I I am sorry for thy hurt ; 
only glad that it has kept thee from disobeying thy mother.” 

“ Away, away ! ” said Prudence, springing from her. “ I 
am afeared of her in very truth. Faith. Keep between me 
and the witch, or I will throw a stool at her.” 

Faith smiled — it was a bad and wicked smile — but she 
did not stir to calm the fears she had called up in her young 
sister. Just at this moment, the bell began to toll. Hota, 
the Indian witch, was dead. Lois covered her face with her 
hands. Even Faith went a deadlier pale than she had been, 
and said, sighing, “ Poor Hota I But death is best.” 

Prudence alone seemed unmoved by any thoughts con- 
nected with the solemn, monotonous sound. Her only 
consideration was, that now she might go out into the street 
and see- the sights, and hear the news, and escape from the 
terror which she felt at the presence of her cousin. She 
flew upstairs to find her own mantle, ran down again, and 
past Lois, before the English girl had finished her prayer, 
and was speedily mingled among the crowd going to the 
meeting-house. There also Faith and Lois came in due 
course of time, but separately, not together. Faith so 
evidently avoided Lois that she, humbled and grieved, could 
not force her company upon her cousin, but loitered a little 
behind — the quiet tears stealing down her face, shed for the 
many causes that had occurred this morning. 

The meeting-house was full to suffocation; and, as it 
sometimes happens on such occasions, the greatest crowd 
was close about the doors, from the fact that few saw, on 
their first entrance, where there might be possible spaces 
into which they could wedge themselves. Yet they were 
impatient of any arrivals from the outside, and pushed and 

i8i 


Lois the Witch 

hustled Faith, and after her Lois, till the two were forced 
on to a conspicuous place in the very centre of the building, 
where there was no chance of a seat, but still space to stand 
in. Several stood around, the pulpit being in the middle, 
and already occupied by two ministers in Geneva bands and 
gowns, while other ministers, similarly attired, stood holding 
on to it, almost as if they were giving support instead of 
receiving it. Grace Hickson and her son sat decorously in 
their own pew, thereby showing that they had arrived early 
from the execution. You might almost have traced out the 
number of those who had been at the hanging of the Indian 
witch, by the expression of their countenances. They were 
awe-stricken into terrible repose; while the crowd pouring 
in, still pouring in, of those who had not attended the execu- 
tion, looked all restless, and excited, and fierce. A buzz went 
round the meeting that the stranger minister who stood 
along with Pastor Tappau in the pulpit was no other than 
Dr. Cotton Mather himself, come all the way from Boston 
to assist in purging Salem of witches. 

And now Pastor Tappau began his prayer, extempore, as 
was the custom. His words were wild and incoherent, as 
might be expected from a man who had just been consent- 
ing to the bloody death of one who was, but a few days ago, 
a member of his own family ; violent and passionate, as was 
to be looked for in the father of children, whom he believed 
to suffer so fearfully from the crime he would denounce 
before the Lord. He sat down at length from pure ex- 
haustion. Then Dr. Cotton Mather stood forward; he did 
not utter more than a few words of prayer, calm in com- 
parison with what had gone before, and then he went on to 
address the great crowd before him in a quiet, argumentative 
way, but arranging what he had to say with something of 
the same kind of skill which Antony used in his speech to 
the Eomans after Caesar’s murder. Some of Dr. Mather’s 
words have been preserved to us, as he afterwards wrote 
them down in one of his works. Speaking of those “un- 
believing Sadducees” who doubted the existence of such a 

182 


Lois the Witch 

crime, he said : “ Instead of their apish shouts and jeers at 
blessed Scripture, and histories which have such undoubted 
confirmation as that no man that has breeding enough to 
regard the common laws of human society will offer to doubt 
of them, it becomes us rather to adore the goodness of God, 
who from the mouths of babes and sucklings has ordained 
truth, and by the means of the sore-afflicted children of your 
godly pastor, has revealed the fact that the devils have with 
most horrid operations broken in upon your neighbourhood. 
Let us beseech Him that their power may be restrained, and 
that they go not so far in their evil machinations as they did 
but four years ago in the city of Boston, where I was the 
humble means, under God, of loosing from the power of 
Satan the four children of that religious and blessed man, 
Mr. Goodwin. These four babes of grace were bewitched 
by an Irish witch ; there is no end of the narration of the 
torments they had to submit to. At one time they would 
bark like dogs, at another purr like cats ; yea, they would fly 
like geese, and be carried with an incredible swiftness, having 
but just their toes now and then upon the ground, sometimes 
not once in twenty feet, and their arms waved like those of 
a bird. Yet, at other times, by the hellish devices of the 
woman who had bewitched them, they could not stir without 
hmping ; for, by means of an invisible chain, she hampered 
their limbs, or sometimes, by means of a noose, almost 
choked them. One, in special, was subjected by this woman 
of Satan to such heat as of an oven, that I myself have seen 
the sweat drop from off her, while all around were moderately 
cold and well at ease. But not to trouble you with more of 
my stories, I will go on to prove that it was Satan himself 
that held power over her. For a very remarkable thing it 
was, that she was not permitted by that evil spirit to read 
any godly or religious book, speaking the truth as it is in 
Jesus. She could read Popish books well enough, while 
both sight and speech seemed to fail her, when I gave her 
the Assembly’s Catechism. Again, she was fond of that 
prelatical Book of Common Prayer, which is but the Eoman 

183 


Lois the Witch 

mass-book in an English and ungodly shape. In the midst 
of her sufferings, if one put the Prayer-book into her hands, 
it relieved her. Yet, mark you, she could never be brought 
to read the Lord’s Prayer, whatever book she met with it 
in, proving thereby distinctly that she was in league with 
the devil. I took her into my own house, that I, even as 
Dr. Martin Luther did, might wrestle with the devil, and 
have my fling at him. But, when I called my household to 
prayer, the devils that possessed her caused her to whistle, 
and sing, and yeU in a discordant and hellish fashion.” 

At this very instant a shrill, clear whistle pierced all ears. 
Dr. Mather stopped for a moment — 

“ Satan is among you ! ” he cried. “ Look tO yourselves ! ” 
And he prayed with fervour, as if against a present and 
threatening enemy ; but no one heeded him. Whence came 
that ominous, unearthly whistle ? Every man watched his 
neighbour. Again the whistle, out of their very midst ! And 
then a bustle in a comer of the building ; three or four people 
stirring, without any cause immediately perceptible to those 
at a distance ; the movement spread ; and, directly after, a 
passage even in that dense mass of people was cleared for 
two men, who bore forwards Prudence Hickson, lying rigid 
as a log of wood, in the convulsive position of one who suf- 
fered from an epileptic fit. They laid her down among the 
ministers who were gathered round the pulpit. Her mother 
came to her, sending up a wailing cry at the sight of her 
distorted child. Dr. Mather came down from the pulpit 
and stood over her, exorcising the devil in possession, as one 
accustomed to such scenes. The crowd pressed forward in 
mute horror. At length her rigidity of form and feature gave 
way, and she was terribly convulsed — torn by the devil, as 
they called it. By-and-by, the violence of the attack was 
over, and the spectators began to breathe once more ; though 
still the former horror brooded over them, and they listened 
as if for the sudden ominous whistle again, and glanced fear- 
fully around, as if Satan were at their backs picking out his 
next victim. 


184 


Lois the Witch 

Meanwhile, Dr. Mather, Pastor Tappau, and one or two 
others, were exhorting Prudence to reveal, if she could, the 
name of the person, the witch, who, by influence over Satan, 
had subjected the child to such torture as that which they 
had just witnessed. They bade her speak in the name of the 
Lord. She whispered a name in the low voice of exhaustion. 
None of the congregation could hear what it was. But the 
Pastor Tappau, when he heard it, drew back in dismay, 
while Dr. Mather, knowing not to whom the name belonged, 
cried out, in a clear, cold voice — 

“ Know ye one Lois Barclay ; for it is she who hath 
bewitched this poor child ? ” 

The answer was given rather by action than by word, 
although a low murmur went up from many. But all fell 
back, ^s far as falling back in such a crowd was possible, from 
Lois Barclay, where she stood — and looked on her with sur- 
prise and horror. A space of some feet, where no possibility 
of space had seemed to be not a minute before, left Lois 
standing alone, with every eye flxed upon her in hatred and 
dread. She stood like one speechless, tongue-tied, as if in a 
dream. She a witch ! accursed as witches were in the sight 
of God and man ! Her smooth, healthy face became con- 
tracted into shrivel and pallor ; but she uttered not a word, 
only looked at Dr. Mather with her dilated terrified eyes. 

Some one said, “ She is of the household of Grace Hick- 
son, a God-fearing woman.” Lois did not know if the words 
were in her favour or not. She did not think about them, 
even; they told less on her than on any person present. 
She a witch ! and the silver ghttering Avon, and the drown- 
ing woman she had seen in her childhood at Barford — at 
home in England — was before her, and her eyes fell before 
her doom. There was some commotion — some rustling of 
papers ; the magistrates of the town were drawing near the 
pulpit and consulting with the ministers. Dr. Mather spoke 
again — 

“ The Indian woman, who was hung this morning, named 
certain people, whom she deposed to having seen at the 

185 


Lois the Witch 

horrible meetings for the worship of Satan ; but there is no 
name of Lois Barclay down upon the paper, although we 
are stricken at the sight of the names of some ” 

An interruption — a consultation. Again Dr. Mather 
spoke — 

“ Bring the accused witch, Lois Barclay, near to this poor 
suffering child of Christ.” 

They rushed forward to force Lois to the place where 
Prudence lay. But Lois walked forward of herself — 

“ Prudence,” she said, in such a sweet, touching voice, 
that, long afterwards, those who heard it that day spoke of it 
to their children, “ have I ever said an imkind word to you, 
much less done you an ill tmm ? Speak, dear child ! You 
did not know what you said just now, did you ? ” 

But Prudence writhed away from her approach, and 
screamed out, as if stricken with fresh agony — 

“ Take her away ! take her away ! Witch Lois ! Witch 
Lois, who threw me down only this morning, and turned my 
arm black and blue.” And she bared her arm, as if in con- 
firmation of her words. It was sorely bruised. 

“ I was not near you. Prudence ! ” said Lois sadly. But 
that was only reckoned fresh evidence of her diabolical power. 

Lois’s brain began to get bewildered. “ Witch Lois ” ! 
She a witch, abhorred of all men ! yet she would try to think, 
and make one more effort. 

“Aunt Hickson,” she said, and Grace came forwards. 
“ Am I a witch. Aunt Hickson ? ” she asked ; for her aunt, 
stern, harsh, unloving as she might be, was truth itself ; and 
Lois thought — so near to delirium had she come — if her 
aunt condemned her, it was possible she might indeed be a 
witch. 

Grace Hickson faced her unwillingly. 

“ It is a stain upon our family for ever,” was the thought 
in her mind. 

“ It is for God to judge whether thou art a witch or not. 
Not for me.” 

“ Alas, alas 1 ” moaned Lois ; for she had looked at Faith, 

i86 


Lois the Witch 

and learnt that no good word was to be expected from her 
gloomy face and averted eyes. The meeting-house was full 
of eager voices, repressed, out of reverence for the place, into 
tones of earnest murmuring that seemed to fill the air with 
gathering sounds of anger ; and those who had first fallen 
back from the place where *Lois stood were now pressing 
forwards and round about her, ready to seize the young 
friendless girl, and bear her off to prison. Those who 
might have been, who ought to have been, her friends, 
were either averse or indifferent to her ; though only 
Prudence made any open outcry upon her. That evil 
child cried out perpetually that Lois had cast a devilish 
spell upon her, and bade them keep the witch away 
from her; and, indeed. Prudence was strangely convulsed, 
when once or twice Lois’s perplexed and wistful eyes 
were turned in her direction. Here and there, girls, women, 
uttering strange cries, and apparently suffering from the 
same kind of convulsive fit as that which had attacked 
Prudence, were centres of a group of agitated friends, who 
muttered much and savagely of witchcraft, and the list which 
had been taken down only the night before from Hota’s own 
bps. They demanded to have it made public, and objected 
to the slow forms of the law. Others, not so much or so 
immediately interested in the sufferers, were kneeling around, 
and praying aloud for themselves and their own safety, until 
the excitement should be so much quelled as to enable Dr. 
Cotton Mather to be again heard in prayer and exhortation. 

And where was Manasseh ? What said he ? You must 
remember that the stir of the outcry, the accusation, the 
appeals of the accused, all seemed to go on at once, amid the 
buzz and din of the people who had come to worship God, 
but remained to judge and upbraid their fellow-creature. 
Till now, Lois had only caught a glimpse of Manasseh, who 
was apparently trying to push forwards, but whom his 
mother was holding back with word and action, as Lois 
knew she would hold him back ; for it was not for the first 
time that she was made aware how carefully her aunt had 

187 


Lois the Witch 

always shrouded his decent reputation among his fellow- 
citizens from the least suspicion of his seasons of excitement 
and incipient insanity. On such days, when he himself 
imagined that he heard prophetic voices and saw prophetic 
visions, his mother would do much to prevent any besides 
his own family from seeing him'; and now Lois, by a process 
swifter than reasoning, felt certain, from her one look at his 
face when she saw it, colourless and deformed by intensity 
of expression, among a number of others, all simply ruddy 
and angry, that he was in such a state that his mother 
would in vain do her utmost to prevent his making himself 
conspicuous. Whatever force or argument Grace used, it 
was of no avail. In another moment, he was by Lois’s side, 
stammering with excitement, and giving vague testimony, 
which would have been of little value in a calm court of justice, 
and was only oil to the smouldering fire of that audience. 

“ Away with her to gaol ! ” “ Seek out the witches ! ” 

“ The sin has spread into all households ! ” “ Satan is in 

the very midst of us ! ” “ Strike and spare not ! ” In vain 

Dr. Cotton Mather raised his voice in loud prayers, in which 
he assumed the guilt of the accused girl ; no one listened, all 
were anxious to secure Lois, as if they feared she would 
vanish from before their very eyes : she, white, trembling, 
standing quite still in the tight grasp of strange, fierce men, 
her dilated eyes only wandering a little now and then in 
search of some pitiful face — some pitiful face that, among all 
those hundreds, was not to be found. While some fetched 
cords to bind her, and others, by low questions, suggested 
new accusations to the distempered brain of Prudence, 
Manasseh obtained a hearing once more. Addressing Dr. 
Cotton Mather, he said, evidently anxious to make clear 
some new argument that had just suggested itself to him : 
“ Sir, in this matter, be she witch or not, the end has been 
foreshown to me by the spirit of prophecy. Now, reverend 
sir, if the event be known to the spirit, it must have been 
foredoomed in the counsels of God. If so, why punish her 
for doing that in which she had no free-will ? ” 

i88 


Lois the Witch 

Young man,” said Dr. Mather, bending down from the 
pulpit and looking very severely upon Manasseh, “ take care ! 
you are trenching on blasphemy,” 

“ I do not care. I say it again. Either Lois Barclay is 
a witch, or she is not. If she is, it has been foredoomed for 
her, for I have seen a vision of her death as a condemned 
witch for many months past — and the voice has told me 
there was but one escape for her — Lois — the voice you 

know ” In his excitement he began to wander a little ; 

but it was touching to see how conscious he was, that by 
giving way he would lose the thread of the logical argument 
by which he hoped to prove that Lois ought not to be 
punished, and with what an effort he wrenched his imagina- 
tion away from the old ideas, and strove to concentrate all 
his mind upon the plea that, if Lois was a witch, it had been 
shown him by prophecy : and, if there was prophecy, there 
must be foreknowledge ; if foreknowledge, no freedom ; if no 
freedom, no exercise of free-will ; and, therefore, that Lois 
was not justly amenable to punishment. 

On he went, plunging into heresy, caring not — growing 
more and more passionate every instant, but directing his 
passion into keen argument, desperate sarcasm, instead of 
allowing it to excite his imagination. Even Dr. Mather felt 
himself on the point of being worsted in the very presence 
of this congregation, who, but a short half-hour ago, looked 
upon him as all but infalhble. Keep a good heart. Cotton 
Mather ! your opponent’s eye begins to glare and flicker 
with a terrible, yet uncertain, light — his speech grows less 
coherent, and his arguments are mixed up with wild glimpses 
at wilder revelations made to himself alone. He has touched 
on the limits — he has entered the borders — of blasphemy; 
and, with an awful cry of horror and reprobation, the congre- 
gation rise up, as one man, against the blasphemer. Dr. 
Mather smiled a grim smile ; and the people were ready to 
stone Manasseh, who went on, regardless, talking and raving. 

Stay, stay! ” said Grace Hickson — all the decent family 
shame which prompted her to conceal the mysteriQUS 

189 


Lois the Witch 

misfortune of her only son from public knowledge done away 
with by the sense of the immediate danger to his life. 
“ Touch him not ! He knows not what he is saying. The 
fit is upon him. I tell you the truth before God. My son, 
my only son, is mad.” 

They stood aghast at the intelligence. The grave young 
citizen, who had silently taken his part in life close by them 
in their daily lives — not mixing much with them, it was true, 
but looked up to, perhaps, all the more — the student of 
abstruse books on theology, fit to converse with the most 
learned ministers that ever came about those parts — was he 
the same with the man now pouring out wild words to Lois 
the witch, as if he and she were the only two present ? A 
solution of it all occurred to them. He was another victim. 
Great was the power of Satan ! Through the arts of the 
devil, that white statue of a girl had mastered the soul of 
Manasseh Hickson. So the word spread from mouth to 
mouth. And Grace heard it. It seemed a healing balsam 
for her shame. With wilful, dishonest blindness, she would 
not see — not even in her secret heart would she acknowledge 
— that Manasseh had been strange, and moody, and violent 
long before the English girl had reached Salem. She even 
found some specious reason for his attempt at suicide long 
ago. He was recovering from a fever — and though tolerably 
well in health, the delirium had not finally left him. But 
since Lois came, how headstrong he had been at times ! how 
unreasonable! how moody! What a strange delusion was 
that which he was under, of being bidden by some voice to 
marry her ! How he followed her about, and clung to her, 
as under some compulsio'n of affection ! And over aU reigned 
the idea that,’ if he were indeed suffering from being be- 
witched, he was not mad, and might again assume th6 
honourable position he had held in the congregation and in 
the town, when the spell by which >he was held was 
destroyed. So Grace yielded to the notion herself, and 
encouraged it in others, that Lois Barclay had bewitched 
both Manasseh and Prudence. And the consequence of this 

T90 


Lois the Witch 

belief was, that Lois was to be tried, with little chance in 
her favour, to see whether she was a witch or no ; and if a 
witch, whether she would confess, implicate others, repent, 
and live a life of bitter shame, avoided by all men, and 
cruelly treated by most; or die, impenitent, hardened, 
denying her crime upon the gallows. 

And so they dragged Lois away from the congregation of 
Christians to the gaol, to await her trial. I say “ dragged 
her ” : because, although she was docile enough to have 
followed them whither they would, she was now so faint as 
to require extraneous force — poor Lois! who should have 
been carried and tended lovingly in her state of exhaustion ; 
but, instead, was so detested by the multitude, who looked 
upon her as an accomplice of Satan in all his evil doings, 
that they cared no more how they treated her than a careless 
boy minds how he handles the toad that he is going to throw 
over the wall. 

When Lois came to her full senses, she found herself 
lying on a short, hard bed in a dark, square room, which she 
at once knew must be a part of the city gaol. It was about 
eight feet square ; it had stone walls on every side, and a 
grated opening high above her head, letting in all the light 
and air that could enter through about a square foot of 
aperture. It was so lonely, so dark to that poor girl, when 
she came slowly and painfully out of her long faint. She 
did so want human help in that struggle which always 
supervenes after a swoon ; when the effort is to clutch at 
life, and the effort seems too much for the will. She did 
not at first understand where she was, did not understand 
how she came to be there ; nor did she care to understand. 
Her physical instinct was to lie still and let the hurrying 
pulses have time to calm. So she shut her eyes once more. 
Slowly, slowly the recollection of the scene in the meeting- 
house shaped itself into a kind of picture before- her. She 
saw within her eyelids, as it were, that sea of loathing 
faces all turned towards her, as towards something imclean 
and hateful. And you must remember, you who in the 

191 


Lois the Witch 

nineteenth century read this account, that witchcraft was a 
real terrible sin to her, Lois Barclay, two hundred years ago. 
The look on their faces, stamped on heart and brain, excited 
in her a sort of strange sympathy. Could it, 0 God ! — could 
it be true, that Satan had obtained the terrific power over 
her and her will of which she had heard and read ? Could 
she indeed be possessed by a demon and be indeed a witch, 
and yet till now have been unconscious of it? And her 
excited imagination recalled, with singular vividness, all 
she had ever heard on the subject — the horrible midnight 
sacrament, the very presence and power of Satan. Then, 
remembering every angry thought against her neighbour, 
against the impertinences of Prudence, against the overbear- 
ing authority of her aunt, against the persevering crazy suit 
of Manasseh, her indignation — only that morning, but such 
ages off in real time — at Faith’s injustice; oh, could such 
evil thoughts hav6 had devilish power given to them by the 
father of evil, and, all unconsciously to herself, have gone 
forth as active curses into the world ? And so the ideas 
went on careering wildly through the poor girl’s brain, the 
girl thrown inward upon herself. At length, the sting of her 
imagination forced her to start up impatiently. What was 
this ? A weight of iron on her legs — a weight stated after- 
wards, by the gaoler of Salem prison, to have been “ not 
more than eight pounds.” It was well for Lois it was a 
tangible ill, bringing her back from the wild, illimitable desert 
in which her imagination was wandering. She took hold of 
the iron, and saw her tom stocking, her bruised ankle, and 
began' to cry pitifully, out of strange compassion with herself. 
They feared, then, that even in that cell she would find a 
way to escape ! Why, the utter, ridiculous impossibility of 
the thing convinced her of her own innocence and ignorance 
of all supernatural power ; and the heavy iron brought her 
strangely round from the delusions that seemed to be gathering 
about her. 

No ! she never could fly out of that deep dungeon ; there 
was no escape, natural or supernatural, for her, unless by 

192 


Lois the Witch 

man s mercy. And what was man’s mercy in such times of 
panic ? Lois knew that it was nothing ; instinct, more than 
reason, taught her that panic calls out cowardice, and 
cowardice cruelty. Yet she cried, cried freely, and for the 
first time, when she found herself ironed and chained. It 
seemed so cruel, so much as if her fellow-creatures had 
really learnt to hate and dread her — her, who had had a 
few angry thoughts, which God forgive ! but whose thoughts 
had never gone into words, far less into actions. Why, even 
now she could love all the household at home, if they would 
but let her ; yes, even yet, though she felt that it was the 
open accusation of Prudence and the withheld justifications 
of her aunt and Faith that had brought her to her present 
strait. Would they ever come and see her ? Would kinder 
thoughts of her — who had shared their daily bread for months 
and months — bring them to see her, and ask her whether it 
were really she who had brought on the illness of Prudence, 
the derangement of Manasseh’s mind ? 

No one came. Bread and water were pushed in by some 
one, who hastily locked and unlocked the door, and cared 
not to see if he put them within his prisoner’s reach, or 
perhaps thought that that physical fact mattered little to a 
witch. It was long before Lois could reach them ; and she 
had something of the natural hunger of youth left in her still, 
which prompted her, lying her length on the floor, to weary 
herself with efforts to obtain the bread. After she had eaten 
some of it, the day began to wane, and she thought she 
would lay her down and try to sleep. But before she did 
so, the gaoler heard her singing the Evening Hymn — 

“ Glory to Thee, my God, this night. 

For all the blessings of the light 1 ” 

And a dull thought came into his dull mind, that she was 
thankful for few blessings, if she could tune up her voice 
to sing praises after this day of what, if she were a witch, 
was shameful detection in abominable practices, and if 

not Well, his mind stopped short at this point in his 

193 o 


Lois the Witch 

wondering contemplation. Lois knelt down and said the 
Lord’s Prayer, pausing just a little before one clause, that 
she might be sure that in her heart of hearts she did forgive. 
Then she looked at her ankle, and the tears came into her 
eyes once again ; but not so much because she was hurt, as 
because men must have hated her so bitterly before they could 
have treated her thus. Then she lay down and fell asleep. 

The next day, she was led before Mr. Hathorn and Mr. 
Curwin, justices of Salem, to be accused legally and publicly 
of witchcraft. Others were with her, under the same charge. 
And when the prisoners were brought in, they were cried 
out at by the abhorrent crowd. The two Tappaus, Prudence, 
and one or two other girls of the same age were there, in 
the character of victims of the spells of the accused. The 
prisoners were placed about seven or eight feet from the 
justices, and the accuser between the justices and them; 
the former were then ordered to stand right before the 
justices. All this Lois did at their bidding, with something 
of the wondering docihty of a child, but not with any hope 
of softening the hard, stony look of detestation that was on 
all the countenances around her, save those that were dis- 
torted by more passionate anger. Then an officer was 
bidden to hold each of her hands, and Justice Hathorn bade 
her keep her eyes continually fixed on him, for this reason — 
which, however, was not told to her — lest, if she looked on 
Prudence, the girl might either fall into a fit, or cry out that 
she was suddenly or violently hurt. If any heart could have 
been touched in that cruel multitude, they would have felt 
some compassion for the sweet young face of the English 
girl, trying so meekly to do all that she was ordered, her 
face quite white, yet so full of sad gentleness, her grey eyes, 
a little dilated by the very solemnity of her position, fixed 
with the intent look of innocent maidenhood on the stem 
face of Justice Hathorn. And thus they stood in silence, 
one breathless minute. Then they were bidden to say the 
Lord’s Prayer. Lois went through it as if alone in her cell ; 
but, as she had done alone in her cell the night before, she 

194 


Lois the Witch 

made a little pause, before the prayer to be forgiven as she 
forgave. And at this instant of hesitation — as if they had 
been on the watch for it — they all cried out upon her for 
a witch ; and, when the clamour ended, the justices bade 
Prudence Hickson come forward. Then Lois turned a little 
to one side, wishing to see at least one familiar face ; but, 
when her eyes fell upon Prudence, the girl stood stock-still, 
and answered no questions, nor spoke a word, and the 
justices declared that she was struck dumb by witchcraft. 
Then some behind took Prudence under the arms, and 
would have forced her forwards to touch Lois, possibly 
esteeming that as a cure for her being bewitched. But 
Prudence had hardly been made to take three steps, before 
she struggled out of their arms and fell down writhing, as in 
a fit, calling out with shrieks, and entreating Lois to help 
her, and save her from her torment. Then all the girls 
began “ to tumble down like swine ” (to use the words of an 
eye-witness) and to cry out upon Lois and her fellow- 
prisoners. These last were now ordered to stand with their 
hands stretched out, it being imagined that, if the bodies of 
the witches were arranged in the form of a cross, they would 
lose their evil power. By-and-by, Lois felt her strength 
going, from the unwonted fatigue of such a position, which 
she had borne patiently until the pain and weariness had 
forced both tears and sweat down her face ; and she asked, 
in a low, plaintive voice, if she might not rest her head for 
a few moments against the wooden partition. But Justice 
Hathorn told her she had strength enough to torment others, 
and should have strength enough to stand. She sighed a 
little, and bore on, the clamour against her and the other 
accused increasing every moment ; the only way she could 
keep herself from utterly losing consciousness was by dis- 
tracting herself from present pain and danger, and saying 
to herself verses of the Psalms as she could remember them, 
expressive of trust in God. At length, she was ordered back 
to gaol, and dimly understood that she and others were 
sentenced to be hanged for witchcraft. Many people now 

195 


Lois the Witch 

looked eagerly at Lois, to see if she would weep at this 
doom. If she had had strength to cry, it might — it was just 
possible that it might — have been considered a plea in her 
favour, for witches could not shed tears ; but she was too 
exhausted and dead. All she wanted was to lie down once 
more on her prison-bed, out of the reach of men’s cries of 
abhorrence, and out of shot of their cruel eyes. So they led 
her back to prison, speechless and tearless. 

But rest gave her back her power of thought and suffer- 
ing. Was it indeed true that she was to die ? She, Lois 
Barclay, only eighteen, so well, so young, so fuU of love and 
hope as she had been, till but these few days past ! What 
would they think of it at home — real, dear home at Barford, 
in England ? There they had loved her ; there she had gone 
about singing and rejoicing, all the day long, in the pleasant 
meadows by the Avon side. Oh, why did father and mother 
die, and leave her their bidding to come here to this cruel 
New England shore, where no one had wanted her, no one 
had cared for her, and where now they were going to put her 
to a shameful death as a witch? And there would be no 
one to send kindly messages by, to those she should never 
see more. Never more! Young Lucy was living, and 
joyful — probably thinking of her, and of his declared intention 
of coming to fetch her home to be his wife this very spring. 
Possibly he had forgotten her ; no one knew. A week 
before, she would have been indignant at her own distrust in 
thinking for a minute that he could forget. Now, she 
doubted all men’s goodness for a time ; for those around her 
were deadly, and cruel, and relentless. 

Then she turned round, and beat herself with angry 
blows (to speak in images) for ever doubting her lover. Oh ! 
if she were but with him 1 Oh ! if she might but be with 
him I He would not let her die, but would hide her in his 
bosom from the wrath of this people, and carry her back to 
the old home at Barford. And he might even now be sailing 
on the wide blue sea, coming nearer, nearer every moment ; 
and yet be too late after all. 


196 


Lois the Witch 

So the thoughts chased each other through her head all 
that feverish night, till she clung almost deliriously to life, 
and wildly prayed that she might not die ; at least, not just 
yet, and she so young ! 

Pastor Tappau and certain elders roused her up from a 
heavy sleep, late on the morning of the following day. All 
night long, she had trembled and cried, till morning light had 
come peering in through the square grating up above. It 
soothed her, and she fell asleep, to be awakened, as I have 
said, by Pastor Tappau. 

“ Arise ! ’ ’ said he, scrupling to touch her, from his super- 
stitious idea of her evil powers. “ It is noonday.” 

“ Where am I ? ” said she, bewildered at this unusual 
wakening and the array of severe faces, all gazing upon her 
with reprobation. 

“ You are in Salem gaol, condemned for a witch.” 

“ Alas ! I had forgotten for an instant,” said she, diopping 
her head upon her breast. 

“ She has been out on a devilish ride all night long, 
doubtless, and is weary and perplexed this morning,” 
whispered one in so low a voice that he did not think she 
could hear ; but she lifted up her eyes, and looked at him, 
with mute reproach. 

“We are come,” said Pastor Tappau, “ to exhort you to 
confess your great and manifold sin.” 

“ My great and manifold sin ! ” repeated Lois to herself, 
shaking her head. 

“Yea, your sin of witchcraft. If you will confess, there 
may yet be balm in Gilead.” 

One of the elders, struck with pity at the young girl’s 
wan, shrunken look, said that if she confessed and repented, 
and did penance, possibly her life might yet be spared. 

A sudden flash of light came into her sunk, dulled eye. 
Might she yet live ? Was it yet in her power ? Why, no 
one knew how soon Ealph Lucy might be here, to take her 
away for ever into the peace of a new home ! Life ! Oh, 
then, aU hope was not over — perhaps she might still hve, 

197 


Lois the Witch 

and not die. Yet the truth came once more out of her Hps, 
almost without exercise of her will. 

“ I am not a witch,” she said. 

Then Pastor Tappau blindfolded her, all unresisting, but 
with languid wonder in her heart as to what was to come 
next. She heard people enter the dungeon softly, and 
heard whispering voices ; then her hands were lifted up and 
made to touch some one near, and in an instant she heard a 
noise of struggling, and the well-known voice of Prudence 
shrieking out in one of her hysterical fits, and screaming to 
be taken away and out of that place. It seemed to Lois as 
if some of her judges must have doubted of her guilt, and 
demanded yet another test. She sat down heavily on her 
bed, thinking she must be in a horrible dream, so compassed 
about with dangers and enemies did she seem. Those in the 
dungeon — and, by the oppression of the air, she perceived that 
there were many — kept on eager talking in low voices. She 
did not try to make out the sense of the fragments of 
sentences that reached her dulled brain, till, all at once, a 
word or two made her understand they were discussing the 
desirableness of applying the whip or the torture to make 
her confess, and reveal by what means the spell she had cast 
upon those whom she had bewitched could be dissolved. A 
thrill of affright ran through her; and she cried out be- 
seechingly — 

“ I beg you, sirs, for God’s mercy sake, that you do not 
use such awful means. I may say anything — nay, I may 
accuse any one — ^if I am subjected to such torment as I have 
heard tell about. For I am but a young girl, and not very 
brave, or very good, as some are.” 

It touched the hearts of one or two to see her standing 
there; the tears streaming down from below the coarse 
handkerchief, tightly bound over her eyes ; the clanking chain 
fastening the heavy weight to the slight ankle; the two 
hands held together, as if to keep down a convulsive motion. 

“ Look ! ” said one of these. “ She is weeping. They 
say no witch can weep tears.” 

198 


Lois the Witch 

But another scoffed at this test, and bade the first remember 
how those of her own family, the Hicksons even, bore witness 
against her. 

Once more, she was bidden to confess. The charges, 
esteemed by all men (as they said) to have been proven 
against her, were read over to her, with all the testimony 
borne against her in proof thereof. They told her that, 
considering the godly family to which she belonged, it had 
been decided by the magistrates and ministers of Salem that 
she should have her life spared, if she would own her guilt, 
make reparation, and submit to penance ; but that, if not, 
she and others convicted of witchcraft along with her, were 
to be hung in Salem market-place on the next Thursday 
morning (Thursday being market-day). And when they had 
thus spoken, they waited silently for her answer. It was a 
minute or two before she spoke. She had sat down again 
upon the bed meanwhile ; for indeed she was very weak. She 
asked, “ May I have this handkerchief unbound from my eyes; 
for indeed, sirs, it hurts me ? ” 

The occasion for which she was blindfolded being over, 
the bandage was taken off, and she was allowed to see. She 
looked pitifully at the stem faces around her, in grim suspense 
as to what her answer would be. Then she spoke — 

“ Sirs, I must choose death with a quiet conscience, rather 
than life to be gained by a lie. I am not a witch. I know 
not hardly what you mean, when you say I am. I have 
done many, many things very wrong in my life ; but I think 
God will forgive me them for my Saviour’s sake.” 

“ Take not His name on your wicked lips,” said Pastor 
Tappau, enraged at her resolution of not confessing, and 
scarcely able to keep himself from striking her. She saw 
the desire he had, and shrank away in timid fear. Then 
Justice Hathorn solemnly read the legal condemnation of 
Lois Barclay to death by hanging, as a convicted witch. 
She murmured something which nobody heard fully, but 
which sounded like a prayer for pity and compassion on her 
tender years and friendless estate. Then they left her to all 

199 


Lois the Witch 

the horrors of that solitary, loathsome dungeon, and the 
strange terror of approaching death. 

Outside the prison-walls, the dread of the witches, and 
the excitement against witchcraft, grew with fearful rapidity. 
Numbers of women, and men, too, were accused, no matter 
what their station of life and their former character had been. 
On the other side, it is alleged that upwards of fifty persons 
were grievously vexed by the devil, and those to whom he 
had imparted of his power for vile and wicked considera- 
tions. How much of malice — distinct, unmistakable, personal 
malice — was mixed up with these accusations, no one can 
now tell. The dire statistics of this time tell us, that fifty- 
five escaped death by confessing themselves guilty; one 
hundred and fifty were in prison ; more than two hundred 
accused; and upwards of twenty suffered death, among 
whom was the minister I have called Nolan, who was 
traditionally esteemed to have suffered through hatred of his 
co-pastor. One old man, scorning the accusation, and re- 
fusing to plead at his trial, was, according to the law, pressed 
to death for his contumacy. Nay, even dogs were accused 
of witchcraft, suffered the legal penalties, and are recorded 
among the subjects of capital punishment. One young man 
found means to effect his mother’s escape from confinement, 
fled with her on horseback, and secreted her in the Blue- 
berry Swamp, not far from Taplay’s Brook, in the Great 
Pasture ; he concealed her here in a wigwam which he built 
for her shelter, provided her with food and clothing, and 
comforted and sustained her, until after the delusion had 
passed away. The poor creature must, however, have 
suffered dreadfully ; for one of her arms was fractured in the 
all but desperate effort of getting her out of prison. 

But there was no one to try and save Lois. Grace 
Hickson would fain have ignored her altogether. Such a 
taint did witchcraft bring upon a whole family, that genera- 
tions of blameless life were not at that day esteemed sufficient 
to wash it out. Besides, you must remember that Grace, 
along with most people of her time, believed most firmly in 

200 


Lois the Witch 

the reality of the crime of witchcraft. Poor, forsaken Lois 
beheved in it herself; and it added to her terror, for the 
gaoler, in an unusually communicative mood, told her that 
nearly every cell was now full of witches, and it was possible 
he might have to put one, if more came, in with her. Lois 
knew that she was no witch herself; but not the less did 
she believe that the crime was abroad, and largely shared 
in by evil-minded persons who had chosen to give up their 
souls to Satan ; and she shuddered with terror at what the 
gaoler said, and would have asked him to spare her this 
companionship, if it were possible. But, somehow, her 
senses were leaving her ; and she could not remember the 
right words in which to form her request, until he had left 
the place. 

The only person who yearned after Lois — who would 
have befriended her if he could — was Manasseh, poor,- mad 
Manasseh. But he was so wild and outrageous in his talk, 
that it was all his mother could do to keep his state concealed 
from public observation. She had for this purpose given 
him a sleeping potion ; and, while he lay heavy and inert 
under the influence of the poppy-tea, his mother bound him 
with cords to the ponderous, antique bed in which he slept. 
She looked broken-hearted, while she did this office and thus 
acknowledged the degradation of her first-born — him of whom 
she had ever been so proud. 

Late that evening, Grace Hickson stood in Lois’s cell, 
hooded and cloaked up to her eyes. Lois was sitting quite 
still, playing idly with a bit of string which one of the 
magistrates had dropped out of his pocket that morning. 
Her aunt was standing by her for an instant or two in 
silence, before Lois seemed aware of her presence. Suddenly, 
she looked up and uttered a little cry, shrinking away from 
the dark figure. Then, as if her cry had loosened Grace’s 
tongue, she began — 

“ Lois Barclay, did I ever do you any harm ? ” Grace 
did not know how often her want of loving-kindness had 
pierced the tender heart of the stranger under her roof ; nor 

201 


Lois the Witch 

did Lois remember it against her now. Instead, Lois’s 
memory was filled with grateful thoughts of how much that 
might have been left undone, by a less conscientious person, 
her aunt had done for her ; and she half -stretched out her 
arms as to a friend in that desolate place, while she 
answered — 

“ Oh no, no ! you were very good I very kind I ” 

But Grace stood immovable. 

“ I did you no harm, although I never rightly knew why 
you came to us.” 

“ I was sent by my mother on her death-bed,” moaned 
Lois, covering her face. It grew darker every instant. Her 
aunt stood, still and silent. 

“ Did any of mine ever wrong you ? ” she asked, after a 
time. 

“No, no; never, till Prudence said Oh, aunt, do 

you think I am a witch ? ” And now Lois was standing up, 
holding hy Grace’s cloak, and trying to read her face. Grace 
drew herself, ever so little, away from the girl, whom she 
dreaded, and yet sought to propitiate. 

“ Wiser than I, godher than I, have said it. But, oh, 
Lois, Lois I he was my first-born. Loose him from the 
demon, for the sake of Him whose name I dare not name in 
this terrible building, filled with them who have renounced 
the hopes of their baptism ; loose Manasseh from his awful 
state, if ever I or mine did you a kindness.” 

“You ask me for Christ’s sake,” said Lois. “I can 
name that holy name — for oh, aunt ! indeed, and in holy 
truth, I am no witch ! and yet I am to die — to he hanged ! 
Aunt, do not let them kill me ! I am so young, and I never 
did any one any harm that I know of.” 

“ Hush ! for very shame ! This afternoon I have hound 
my first-born with strong cords, to keep him from doing 
himself or us a mischief — he is so frenzied. Lois Barclay, 
look here 1 ” and Grace knelt down at her niece’s feet, and 
joined her hands, as if in prayer. “ I am a proud woman, 
God forgive me ! and I never thought to kneel to any save 

202 


Lois the Witch 

to Him. And now I kneel at your feet, to pray you to 
release my children, more especially my son Manasseh, from 
the spells you have put upon them. Lois, hearken to me, 
and I will pray to the Almighty for you, if yet there may be 
mercy.” 

“ I cannot do it ; I never did you or yours any wrong. 
How can I undo it ? How can I ? ” And she wrung her 
hands, in intensity of conviction of the inutility of aught she 
could do. 

Here Grace got up, slowly, stiffly, and sternly. She stood 
aloof from the chained girl, in the remote corner of the 
prison-cell near the door, ready to make her escape as soon 
as she had cursed the witch, who would not, or could not, 
undo the evil she had wrought. Grace hfted up her right 
hand, and held it up on high, as she doomed Lois to be 
accursed for ever, for her deadly sin, and her want of mercy 
even at this final hour. And, lastly, she summoned her to 
meet her at the judgment-seat, and answer for this deadly 
injury, done to both souls and bodies of those who had taken 
her in, and received her when she came to them an orphan 
and a stranger. 

Until this last summons, Lois had stood as one who 
hears her sentence and can say nothing against it, for she 
knows all would be in vain. But she raised her head when 
she heard her aunt speak of the judgment-seat, and at the 
end of Grace’s speech she, too, lifted up her right hand, as 
if solemnly pledging herself by that action, and rephed — 

“ Aunt ! I will meet you there. And there you will know 
my innocence of this deadly thing. God have mercy on you 
and yours ! ” 

Her calm voice maddened Grace ; and, making a gesture 
as if she plucked up a handful of dust off the floor and threw 
it at Lois, she cried — 

“ Witch ! witch ! ask mercy for thyself — I need not your 
prayers. Witches’ prayers are read backwards. I spit at 
thee, and defy thee ! ” And so she went away. 

Lois sat moaning that whole night through. “ God comfort 
203 


Lois the Witch 

me! God strengthen me!” was all she could remember 
to say. She just felt that want, nothing more — all other 
fears and wants seemed dead within her. And, when the 
gaoler brought in her breakfast the next morning, he reported 
her as “ gone silly ” ; for, indeed, she did not seem to know 
him, but kept rocking herself to and fro, and whispering 
softly to herself, smiling a httle from time to time. 

But God did comfort her, and strengthen her too. Late 
on that Wednesday afternoon they thrust another “ witch ” 
into her cell, bidding the two, with opprobrious words, keep 
company together. The new-comer fell prostrate with the 
push given her from without ; and Lois, not recognising any- 
thing but an old ragged woman, lying helpless on her face 
on the ground, lifted her up ; and lo ! it was Nattee — dirty, 
filthy indeed, mud-pelted, stone-bruised, beaten, and all 
astray in her wits with the' treatment she had received from 
the mob outside. Lois held her in her arms, and softly 
vdped the old brown wrinkled face with her apron, crying 
over it, as she had hardly yet cried over her own sorrows. 
For hours she tended the old Indian woman — tended her 
bodily woes ; and, as the poor scattered senses of the savage 
creature came slowly back, Lois gathered her infinite dread 
of the morrow, when she, too, as well as Lois, was to be led 
out to die, in face of aU that infuriated crowd. Lois sought 
in her own mind for some source of comfort for the old 
woman, who shook like one in the shaking-palsy at the 
dread of death — and such a death ! 

When all was quiet through the prison, in the deep dead 
midnight, the gaoler outside the door heard Lois telling, as 
if to a young child, the marvellous and sorrowful story of 
One who died on the cross for us and for our sakes. As 
long as she spoke, the Indian woman’s terror seemed lulled ; 
but, the instant she paused for weariness, Nattee cried out 
afresh, as if some wild beast were following her close through 
the dense forests in which she had dwelt in her youth. And 
then Lois went on, saying all the blessed words she could 
remember, and comforting the helpless Indian woman with 

204 


Lois the Witch 

the sense of the presence of a Heavenly Friend. And, in 
comforting her, Lois was comforted; in strengthening her, 
Lois was strengthened. 

The morning came, and the summons to come forth and 
die came. They who entered the cell found Lois asleep, 
her face resting on the slumbering old woman, whose head 
she still held in her lap. She did not seem clearly to recog- 
nise where she was, when she awakened ; the “ silly ” look 
had returned to her wan face ; all she appeared to know was 
that, somehow or another, through some peril or another, 
she had to protect the poor Indian woman. She smiled 
faintly, when she saw the bright light of the April day ; and 
put her arm round Nattee, and tried to keep the Indian quiet 
with hushing, soothing words of broken meaning, and holy 
fragments of the Psalms. Nattee tightened her hold upon 
Lois, as they drew near the gaUows, and the outrageous 
crowd below began to hoot and yell. Lois redoubled her 
efforts to calm and encourage Nattee, apparently unconscious 
that any of the opprobrium, the bootings, the stones, the 
mud, was directed towards her herself. But, when they took 
Nattee from her arms, and led her out to suffer first, Lois 
seemed all at once to recover her sense of the present terror. 
She gazed wildly around, stretched out her arms as if to 
some person in the distance, who was yet visible to her, and 
cried out once, with a voice that thrilled through all who 
heard it, “ Mother ! ” Directly afterwards, the body of Lois 
the Witch swung in the air ; and every one stood with hushed 
breath, with a sudden wonder, hke a fear of deadly crime, 
fallen upon them. 

The stillness and the silence were broken by one crazed 
and mad, who came rushing up the steps of the ladder, and 
caught Lois’s body in his arms, and kissed her bps with 
wild passion. And then, as if it were true what the people 
believed, that he was possessed by a demon, he sprang down, 
and rushed through the crowd, out of the bounds of the city, 
and into the dark dense forest ; and Manasseh Hickson was 
no more seen of Christian man. 

205 


Lois the Witch 

The people of Salem had awakened from their frightful 
delusion before the autumn, when Captain Holdernesse and 
Ealph Lucy came to find out Lois, and bring her home to 
peaceful Barford, in the pleasant country of England. 
Instead, they led them to the grassy grave where she lay at 
rest, done to death by mistaken men. Ealph Lucy shook 
the dust off his feet in quitting Salem, with a heavy, heavy 
heart, and lived a bachelor all his life long for her sake. 

Long years afterwards. Captain Holdernesse sought him 
out, to tell him some news that he thought might interest 
the grave miller of the Avon-side. Captain Holdernesse 
told him, that in the previous year — it was then 1713 — the 
sentence of excommunication against the witches of Salem 
was ordered, in godly sacramental meeting of the church, to 
be erased and blotted out, and that those who met together 
for this purpose “ humbly requested the merciful God would 
pardon whatsoever sin, error, or mistake was in the appli- 
cation of justice, through our merciful High Priest, who 
knoweth how to have compassion on the ignorant, and those 
that are out of the way.” He also said, that Prudence 
Hickson — now woman grown — had made a most touching 
and pungent declaration of sorrow and repentance before 
the whole church, for the false and mistaken testimony she 
had given in several instances, among which she particularly 
mentioned that of her cousin Lois Barclay. To all which 
Ealph Lucy only answered — 

“No repentance of theirs can bring her back to life.” 

Then Captain Holdernesse took out a paper and read the 
following humble and solemn declaration of regret on the 
part of those who signed it, among whom Grace Hickson 
was one : — 

“We, whose names are undersigned, being, in the year 
1692, called to serve as jurors in the court of Salem, on trial 
of many who were by some suspected guilty of doing acts 
of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons : we confess 
that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able 
to withstand, the mysterious delusions of the powers of 

206 


Lois the Witch 

darkness, and prince of the air, but were, for want of know- 
ledge in ourselves, and better information from others, prevailed 
with to take up with such evidence against the accused, as, 
on further consideration, and better information, we justly 
fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of any (Deut. 
xvii. 6), whereby we feel we have been instrumental, with 
others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon 
ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent 
blood ; which sin, the Lord saith in Scripture, he would not 
pardon (2 Kings xxiv. 4), that is, we suppose, in regard of 
his temporal judgments. We do, therefore, signify to all 
I in general (and to the surviving sufferers in special) our 
deep sense of, and sorrow for, our errors, in acting on such 
' evidence to the condemning of any person ; and do hereby 
I declare, that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and 
I mistaken, for which we are much disquieted and distressed 
: in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first 
I of God for Christ’s sake, for this our error ; and pray that 
i God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others ; 

and we also pray that we may be considered candidly and 
[ aright by the living sufferers, as being then under the power 
of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with, 

, and not experienced in, matters of that nature. 

I “We do heartily ask forgiveness of you all, whom we 
have justly offended; and do declare, according to our 
present minds, we would none of us do such things again 
on such grounds for the whole world ; praying you to accept 
of this in way of satisfaction for our offence, and that you 
would bless the inheritance of the Lord, that he may be 
entreated for the land. 

“Foreman, Thomas Fisk, &c.” 

To the reading of this paper Ealph Lucy made no reply 
save this, even more gloomily than before — 

“ All their repentance will avail nothing to my Lois, nor 
, will it bring back her life.” 

Then Captain Holdernesse spoke once more, and said 
207 


Lois the Witch 

that on the day of the general fast, appointed to be held 
all through New England, when the meeting-houses were 
crowded, an old, old man, with white hair, had stood up in 
the place in which he was accustomed to worship, and had 
handed up into the pulpit a written confession, which he 
had once or twice essayed to read for himself, acknowledging 
his great and grievous error in the matter of the witches of 
Salem, and praying for the forgiveness of God and of His 
people, ending with an entreaty that all then present would 
join with him in prayer that his past conduct might not 
bring down the displeasure of the Most High upon his 
country, his family, or himself. That old man, who was 
no other than Justice Sewall, remained standing all the time 
that his confession was read ; and at the end he said, “ The 
good and gracious God be pleased to save New England and 
me and my family ! ” And then it came out that, for years 
past. Judge Sewall had set apart a day for humihatiqn and 
prayer, to keep fresh in his mind a sense of repentance and 
sorrow for the part he had home in these trials, and that this 
solemn anniversary he was pledged to keep as long as he 
hved, to show his feeling of deep humiliation. 

Ealph Lucy’s voice trembled as he spoke : “ All this 
will not bring my Lois to life again, or give me back the 
hope of my youth.” 

But — as Captain Holdernesse shook his head (for what 
word could he say, or how dispute what was so evidently 
true ?) — Ealph added, “ What is the day, know you, that 
this justice has set apart ? ” 

“ The twenty-ninth of April.” 

“ Then, on that day, will I, here at Barford in England, 
join my prayers as long as I live with the repentant judge, 
that his sin may be blotted out and no more had in remem- 
brance. She would have willed it so.” 


208 


THE CROOKED BRANCH 


Not many years after the beginning of this century, a 
worthy couple of the name of Huntroyd occupied a small 
farm in the North Biding of Yorkshire. They had married 
late in hfe, although they were very young when they 
first began to “ keep company ” with each other. Nathan 
Huntroyd had been farm-servant to Hester Bose’s father, 
and had made up to her at a time when her parents thought 
she might do better ; and so, without much consultation of 
her feehngs, they • had dismissed Nathan in somewhat 
cavalier fashion. He had drifted far away from his former 
connections, when an uncle of his died, leaving Nathan — by 
this time upwards of forty years of age — enough money to 
stock a small farm, and yet have something over, to put in 
the bank against bad times. One of the consequences of 
this bequest was, that Nathan was looking out for a wife and 
housekeeper, in a kind of discreet and leisurely way, when 
one day he heard that his old love, Hester, was not married 
and flourishing, as he had always supposed her to be, but 
a poor maid-of-all-work, in the town of Bipon. For her 
father had had a succession of misfortunes, which had 
brought him in his old age to the workhouse ; her mother 
was dead ; her only brother struggling to bring up a large 
family ; and Hester herself- a hard-working, homely-looking 
(at thirty-seven) servant. Nathan had a kind of growling 
satisfaction (which only lasted a minute or two, however) 
in hearing of these turns of fortune’s wheel. He did not 
make many intelligible remarks to his informant, and to no 
one else did he say a word. But, a few days afterwards, he 

209 p 


The Crooked Branch 

presented himself, dressed in his Sunday best, at Mrs. 
Thompson's back-door in Eipon. 

Hester stood there, in answer to the good sound knock 
his good sound oak-stick made : she, with the light full upon 
her, he in shadow. For a moment there was silence. He 
was scanning the face and figure of his old love, for twenty 
years unseen. The comely beauty of youth had faded away 
entirely; she was, as I have said, homely-looking, plain- 
ieatured, but with a clean skin, and pleasant frank eyes. 
Her figure was no longer round, but tidily draped in a blue 
and white bed-gown, tied round her waist by her white 
apron-strings, and her short red linsey petticoat showed 
her tidy feet and ankles. Her former lover fell into no 
ecstasies. He simply said to himself, “ She’ll do ” ; and 
forthwith began upon his business. 

“ Hester, thou dost not mind me. I am Nathan, as thy 
father turned off at a minute’s notice, for thinking of thee for 
a wife, twenty year come Michaelmas next. I have not 
thought much upon matrimony since. But Uncle Ben has 
died, leaving me a small matter in the bank ; and I have 
taken Nab-End Farm, and put in a bit of stock, and shall 
want a missus to see after it. Wilt like to come ? I’ll not 
mislead thee. It’s dairy, and it might have been arable. 
But arable takes more horses nor it suited me to buy, and 
I’d the offer of a tidy lot of kine. That’s all. If thou’U have 
me, I’ll come for thee as soon as the hay is gotten in.” 

Hester only said, “ Come in, and sit thee down.” 

He came in, and sat down. For a time, she took no 
more notice of him than of his stick, bustling about to get 
dinner ready for the family whom she served. He mean- 
while watched her brisk, sharp movements, and repeated to 
himself, “ She’ll do I ” After about twenty minutes of silence 
thus employed, he got up, saying — 

“ Well, Hester, I’m going. When shall I come back 
again ? ” 

“ Please thysel’, and thou’U please me,” said Hester, in a 
tone that she tried to make light and indifferent ; but he saw 

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that her colour came and went, and that she trembled while 
she moved about. In another moment Hester was soundly- 
kissed ; but, when she looked round to scold the middle-aged 
farmer, he appeared so entirely composed that she hesitated. 
He said — 

“ I have pleased mysel’, and thee too, I hope. Is it a 
month’s wage, and a month’s warning ? To-day is the eighth. 
July eighth is our wedding-day. I have no time to spend 
a- wooing before then, and wedding must na take long. Two 
days is enough to throw away, at our time o’ life.” 

It was like a dream; but Hester resolved not to think 
more about it till her work was done. And when all was 
cleaned up for the evening, she went and gave her mistress 
warning, telling her all the history of her life in a very few 
words. That day month she was married from Mrs. 
Thompson’s house. 

The issue of the marriage was one boy, Benjamin. A 
few years after his birth, Hester’s brother died at Leeds, 
leaving ten or twelve children. Hester sorrowed bitterly 
over this loss ; and Nathan showed her much quiet sympathy, 
although he could not but remember that Jack Eose had 
added insult to the bitterness of his youth. He helped his 
wife to make ready to go by the waggon to Leeds. He 
made light of the household difficulties, which came throng- 
ing into her mind after all was fixed for her departure. He 
filled her purse, that she might have wherewithal to alleviate 
the immediate wants of her brother’s family. And, as she 
was leaving, he ran after the waggon. “ Stop, stop ! ” he 
cried. “ Hetty, if thou wilt — if it wunnot be too much for 
thee — bring back one of Jack’s wenches for company, like. 
We’ve enough and to spare ; and a lass will make the house 
winsome, as a man may say.” 

The waggon moved on ; while Hester had such a silent 
swelling of gratitude in her heart, as was both thanks to her 
husband and thanksgiving to God. . 

And that was the way that little Bessy Eose came to be 
an inmate of the Nab’s-Bnd Farm. 


The Crooked Branch 

Virtue met with its own reward in this instance, and in 
a clear and tangible shape, too ; which need not delude people 
in general into thinking that such is the usual nature of 
virtue’s rewards! Bessy grew up a bright affectionate, 
active girl ; a daily comfort to her uncle and aunt. She 
was so much a darling in the household that they even 
thought her worthy of their only son Benjamin, who was 
perfection in their eyes. It is not often the case that two 
plain, homely people have a child of uncommon beauty ; but 
it is so sometimes, and Benjamin Huntroyd was one of these 
exceptional cases. The hard-working, labour- and-care -marked 
farmer, and the mother, who could never have been more 
than tolerably comely in her best days, produced a boy 
who might have been an earl’s son for grace and beauty. 
Even the hunting squires of the neighbourhood reined up 
their horses to admire him, as he opened the gates for them. 
He had no shyness, he was so accustomed from his earliest 
years to admiration from strangers and adoration from 
his parents. As for Bessy Eose, he ruled imperiously over 
her heart from the time she first set eyes on him. And, as 
she grew older, she grew on in loving, persuading herself 
that what her uncle and aunt loved so dearly it was her duty 
to love dearest of all. At every unconscious symptom of 
the young girl’s love for her cousin, his parents smiled and 
winked : all was going on as they wished ; no need to go far 
a-field for Benjamin’s wife. The household could go on as 
it was now; Nathan and Hester sinking into the rest of 
years, and rehnquishing care and authority to those dear 
ones, who, in process of time, might bring other dear ones 
to share their love. 

But Benjamin took it all very coolly. He had been sent 
to a day-school in the neighbouring town — a grammar- 
school in the high state of neglect in which the majority of 
such schools were thirty years ago. Neither his father nor 
his mother knew much ‘Of learning. All they knew (and 
that directed their choice of a school) was that they could 
not, by any possibility, part with their darling to a boarding- 

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school ; that some schooling he must have, and that Squire 
Pollard s son went to Highminster Grammar School. Squire 
Pollard s son, and many another son destined to make his 
parents’ hearts ache, went to this school. If it had not been 
so utterly bad a place of education, the simple farmer and 
his wife might have found it out sooner. But not only did 
the pupils there learn vice, they also learnt deceit. Ben- 
jamin was naturally too clever to remain a dunce ; or else, if 
he had chosen so to be, there was nothing in Highminster 
Grammar School to hinder his being a dunce of the first 
water. But, to all appearance, he grew clever and gentle- 
man-like. His father and mother were even proud of his 
airs and graces, when he came home for the holidays ; taking 
them for proofs of his refinement, although the practical 
effect of such refinement was to make him express his con- 
tempt for his parents’ homely ways and simple ignorance. 
By the time he was eighteen, an articled clerk in an 
attorney’s office at Highminster, — for he had quite declined 
becoming a “mere clod-hopper,” that is to say, a hard- 
working, honest farmer like his father — Bessy Eose was the 
only person who was dissatisfied with him. The httle girl 
of fourteen instinctively felt there was something wrong 
about him. Alas ! two years more, and the girl of sixteen 
worshipped his very shadow, and would not see that aught 
could be wrong with one so soft-spoken, so handsome, so 
kind as Cousin Benjamin. For Benjamin had discovered 
that the way to cajole his parents out of money for every 
indulgence he fancied, was to pretend to forward their 
innocent scheme, and make love to his pretty cousin, Bessy 
Eose. He cared just enough for her to make this work of 
necessity not disagreeable at the time he was performing it. 
But he found it tiresome to remember her little claims upon 
him, when she was no longer present. The letters he had 
promised her during his weekly absence at Highminster, the 
trifling commissions she had asked him to do for her, were 
all considered in the light of troubles; and, even when he 
was with her, he resented the inquiries she made as to his 

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mode of passing his time, or what female acquaintances he 
had in Highminster. 

When his apprenticeship was ended, nothing would serve 
him but that he must go up to London for a year or two. 
Poor Farmer Huntroyd was beginning to repent of his 
ambition of making his son Benjamin a gentleman. But it 
was too late to repine now. Both father and mother felt 
this ; and, however sorrowful they might be, they were silent, 
neither demurring nor assenting to Benjamin’s proposition 
when first he made it. But Bessy, through her tears, 
noticed that both her uncle and aunt seemed unusually 
tired that night, and sat hand-in-hand on the fireside settle, 
idly gazing into the bright flame, as if they saw in it pictures 
of what they had once hoped their lives wordd have been. 
Bessy rattled about among the supper-things, as she put 
them away after Benjamin’s departure, making more noise 
than usual — as if noise and bustle was what she needed to 
keep her from bursting out crying — and, having at one keen 
glance taken in the position and looks of Nathan and Hester, 
she avoided looking in that direction again, for fear the 
sight of their wistful faces should make her own tears 
overflow. 

“ Sit thee down, lass — sit thee down ! Bring the creepie- 
stool to the fireside^ and let’s have a bit of talk over the lad’s 
plans,” said Nathan^ at last rousing himself to speak. Bessy 
came and sat down in front of the fire, and threw her apron 
over her face, as she rested her head on both hands, Nathan 
felt as if it was a chance which of the two women burst out 
crying first. So he thought he would speak, in hopes of 
keeping off the infection of tears. 

“ Didst ever hear of this mad plan afore, Bessy ? ” 

“ No, never ! ” Her voice came muffled and changed 
from under her apron. Hester felt as if the tone, both of 
question and answer, implied blame ; and this she could not 
bear. 

“We should ha’ looked to it when we bound him ; for of 
necessity it would ha’ come to this. There’s examins, and 

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catechizes, and I dunno what all for him to be put through 
in London. It’s not his fault.” 

“ Which on us said it were ? ” asked Nathan, rather put 
out. “ Tho’, for that matter, a few weeks would carry him 
over the mire, and make him as good a lawyer as any judge 
among ’em. Oud Lawson the attorney told me that, in a 
talk I had wi’ him a bit sin. Na, na! it’s the lad’s own 
hankering after London that makes him want for to stay 
there for a year, let alone two.” 

Nathan shook his head. 

“And if it be his own hankering,” said Bessy, putting 
down her apron, her face all flame, and her eyes swollen up, 
“I dunnot see harm in it. Lads aren’t like lasses, to be 
teed to their own fireside like th’ crook yonder. It’s fitting 
for a young man to go abroad and see the world, afore he 
settles down.” 

Hester’s hand sought Bess/s ; and the two women sat in 
sympathetic defiance of any blame that should be thrown on 
the beloved absent. Nathan only said — 

“ Nay, wench, dunnot wax up so ; whatten’s done’s done ; 
and worse, it’s my doing. I mun needs make my bairn a 
gentleman ; and we mun pay for it.” 

“ Dear uncle ! he wunna spend much. I’ll answer for it ; 
and I’ll scrimp and save i’ the house, to make it good.” 

“ Wench ! ” said Nathan solemnly, “ it were not paying 
in cash I were speaking on : it were paying in heart’s care, 
and heaviness of soul. Lunnon is a place where the devil 
keeps court as well as King George ; and my poor chap has 
more nor once welly fallen into his clutches here. I dunno 
what he’ll do, when he gets close within sniff of him.” 

“ Don’t let him go, father ! ” said Hester, for the first 
time taking this view. Hitherto she had only thought of 
her own grief at parting with him. “ Father, if you think so, 
keep him here, safe under your own eye ! ” 

“ Nay ! ” said Nathan, “he’s past time o’ hfe for that. 
Why, there’s not one on us knows where he is at this 
present time, and he not gone out of our sight an hour. 

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He’s too big to be put back i’ th’ go-cart, mother, or to keep 
within doors, with the chair turned bottom-upwards.” 

“ I wish he were a wee bairn lying in my arms again ! 
It were a sore day when I weaned him ; and I think life’s 
been gettin’ sorer and sorer at every turn he’s ta’en towards 
manhood.” 

“ Coom, lass ; that’s noan the way to be talking. Be 
thankful to Marcy that thou’st gotten a man for thy son as 
stands five foot eleven in’s stockings, and ne’er a sick piece 
about him. We wunnot grudge him his fling, will we, Bess, 
my wench ? He’ll be coming back in a year, or, may be, a 
bit more, and be a’ for settling in a quiet town like, wi’ a 
wife that’s noan so fur fra’ me at this very minute. An’ we 
oud folk, as we get into years, must gi’ up farm, and tak a 
bit on a house near Lawyer Benjamin.” 

And so the good Nathan, his own heart heavy enough, 
tried to soothe his women-kind. But, of the three, his eyes 
were longest in closing, his apprehensions the deepest 
founded. 

“ I misdoubt me I hanna done well by th’ lad. I mis- 
doubt me sore,” was the thought that kept him awake till 
day began to dawn. “ Summat’s wrong about him, or folk 
would na look at me wi’ such piteous-like een, when they 
speak on him. I can see th’ meaning of it, thof I’m too 
proud to let on. And Lawson, too, he holds his tongue 
more nor he should do, when I ax him how my lad’s getting 
on, and whatten sort of a lawyer he’ll mak. God be marciful 
to Hester an’ me, if th’ lad’s gone away ! God be marciful ! 
But, may be, it’s this lying waking a’ the night through, that 
maks me so fearfu’. Why, when I were his age, I daur be 
bound I should ha’ spent money fast enoof, i’ I could ha’ 
come by it. But I had to am it ; that maks a great differ’. 
Well ! It were hard to thwart th’ child of our old age, and 
we waitin’ so long for to have ’un ! ” 

Next morning, Nathan rode Moggy, the cart-horse, into 
Highminster to see Mr. Lawson. Anybody who saw him 
ride out of his own yard would have been struck with the 

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change in him which was visible when he returned; a 
change greater than a day’s unusual exercise should have 
made in a man of his years. He scarcely held the reins at 
all. One jerk of Moggy’s head would have plucked them 
out of his hands. His head was bent forward, his eyes 
looking on some unseen thing, with long, unwinking gaze. 
But, as he drew near home on his return, he made an effort 
to recover himself. 

“No need fretting them,” he said ; “ lads will be lads. 
But I didna think he had it in him to be so thowtless, young 
as he is. Well, well ! he’ll, may be, get more wisdom i’ 
Lunnon. Anyways, it’s best to cut him off fra such evil lads 
as Will Hawker, and such-like. It’s they as have led my 
boy astray. He were a good chap till he knowed them — a 
good chap till he knowed them.” 

But he put all his cares in the background, when he came 
into the house-place, where both Bessy and his wife met him 
at the door, and both would fain lend a hand to take off his 
great-coat. 

“ Theer, wenches, theer ! ye might let a man alone for to 
get out on’s clothes ! Why, I might ha’ struck thee, lass.” 
And he went on talking, trying to keep them off for a time 
from the subject that all had at heart. But there was no 
putting them off for ever ; and, by dint of repeated question- 
ing on his wife’s part, more was got out than he had ever 
meant to tell — enough to grieve both his hearers sorely : and 
yet the brave old man still kept the worst in his own breast. 

The next day, Benjamin came home for a week or two, 
before making his great start to London. His father kept 
him at a distance, and was solemn and quiet in his manner 
to the young man. Bessy, who had shown anger enough at 
first, and had uttered many a sharp speech, began to relent, 
and then to feel hurt and displeased that her uncle should 
persevere so long in his cold, reserved manner — and Benjamin 
just going to leave them ! Her aunt went, tremblingly busy, 
about the clothes-presses and drawers, as if afraid of letting 
herself think either of the past or the future ; only once or 

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twice, coming behind her son, she suddenly stopped over his 
sitting figure, and kissed his cheek, and stroked his hair. 
Bessy remembered afterwards — long years afterwards — how 
he had tossed his head away with nervous irritability on one 
of these occasions, and had muttered — her aunt did not hear 
it, but Bessy did — 

“ Can’t you leave a man alone ? ” 

Towards Bessy herself he was pretty gracious. No other 
words express his manner : it was not warm, nor tender, nor 
cousinly, but there was an assumption of underbred polite- 
ness towards her as a young, pretty woman ; which polite- 
ness was neglected in his authoritative or grumbling manner 
towards his mother, or his sullen silence before his father. 
He once or twice ventured on a compliment to Bessy on her 
personal appearance. She stood still, and looked at him with 
astonishment. 

“ Have my eyes changed sin’ last thou saw’st them,” 
she asked, “ that thou must be telling me about ’em i’ that 
fashion ? I’d rayther by a deal see thee helping thy mother, 
when she’s dropped her knitting-needle and canna see i’ th’ 
dusk for to pick it up.” 

But Bessy thought of his pretty speech about her eyes, 
long after he had forgotten making it, and when he would have 
been puzzled to tell the colour of them. Many a day, after he 
was gone, did she look earnestly in the little oblong looking- 
glass, which hung up against the wall of her little sleeping- 
chamber, but which she used to take down in order to ex- 
amine the eyes he had praised, murmuring to herself, “ Pretty, 
soft grey eyes ! Pretty, soft grey eyes ! ” until she would hang 
up the glass again, , with a sudden laugh and a rosy blush. 

In the days when he had gone away to the vague dis- 
tance and vaguer place — the city called London— -Bessy tried 
to forget all that had gone against her feeling of the affection 
and duty that a son owed to his parents ; and she had many 
things to forget of this kind that would keep surging up into 
her mind. For instance, she wished that he had not objected 
to the home-spun, home-made shirts which his mother and 

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she had had such pleasure in getting ready for him. He 
might not know, it was true — and so her love urged — how 
carefully and evenly the thread had been spun : how, not 
content with bleaching the yam in the sunniest meadow, the 
linen, on its return from the weaver’s, had been spread out 
afresh on the sweet summer grass, and watered carefully, 
night after night, when there was no dew to perform the 
kindly office. He did not know — for no one but Bessy her- 
self did — how many false or large stitches, made large and 
false by her aunt’s failing eyes (who yet liked to do the 
choicest part of the stitching all by herself), Bessy had un- 
picked at night in her own room, and with dainty fingers had 
re-stitched ; sewing eagerly in the dead of night. All this he 
did not know; or he could never have complained of the 
coarse texture, the old-fashioned make of these shirts, and 
urged on his mother to give him part of her little store of egg- 
and butter-money, in order to buy newer-fashioned hnen in 
Highminster. 

When once that little precious store of his mother’s was 
discovered, it was well for Bessy’s peace of mind that she did 
not know how loosely her aunt counted up the coins, mistak- 
ing guineas for shilhngs, or just the other way, so that the 
amount was seldom the same in the old black spoutless tea- 
pot. Yet this son, this hope, this love, had still a strange 
power of fascination over the household. The evening before 
he left, he sat between his parents, a hand in theirs on either 
side, and Bessy on the old creepie-stool, her head lying on 
her aunt’s knee^ and looking up at him from time to time, as 
if to learn his face off by heart ; till his glances, meeting hers, 
made her drop her eyes, and only sigh. 

He stopped up late that night with his father, long after . 
the women had gone to bed. But not to sleep ; for I will 
answer for it the grey-haired mother never slept a wink till 
the late dawn of the autumn day ; and Bessy heard her uncle 
come upstairs with heavy, deliberate footsteps, and go to the 
old stocking which served him for bank, and count out the 
golden guineas ; once he stopped, but again he went on 

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afresh, as if resolved to crown his gift with liberality. Another 
long pause — in which she could but indistinctly hear con- 
tinued words, it might have been advice, it might be a prayer, 
for it was in her uncle’s voice — and then father and son came 
up to bed. Bessy’s room was but parted from her cousin’s 
by a thin wooden partition ; and the last sound she distinctly 
heard, before her eyes, tired out with ^crying, closed them- 
selves in sleep, was the guineas clinking down upon each 
other at regular intervals, as if Benjamin were playing at 
pitch and toss with his father’s present. 

After he was gone, Bessy wished he had asked her to 
walk part of the way with him into Highminster. She was 
all ready, her things laid out on the bed ; but she could not 
accompany him without invitation. 

The little household tried to close over the gap as best 
they might. They seemed to set themselves to their daily 
work with unusual vigour ; but somehow, when evening came 
there had been little done. Heavy hearts never make light 
work, and there was no telling how much care and anxiety 
each had had to bear in secret in the field, at the wheel, or in 
the dairy. Formerly, he was looked for every Saturday — 
looked for, though he might not come ; or, if he came, there 
were things to be spoken about that made his visit anything 
but a pleasure : still, he might come, and all things might 
go right ; and then what sunshine, what gladness to those 
humble people ! But now he was away, and dreary winter 
was come on ; old folks’ sight fails, and the evenings were 
long and sad, in spite of all Bessy could do or say. And he 
did not write so often as he might — so each one thought ; 
though each one would have been ready to defend him from 
. either of the others who had expressed such a thought aloud. 
“ Surely,” said Bessy to herself, when the first primroses 
peeped out in a sheltered and sunny hedge-bank, and she 
gathered them as she passed home from afternoon church — 
“ surely, there never will be such a dreary, miserable winter 
again as this has been.” There had been a great change in 
Nathan and Hester Huntroyd during this last year. The 

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spring before, when Benjamin was yet the subject of more 
hopes than fears, his father and mother looked what I may 
call an elderly middle-aged couple : people who had a good 
deal of hearty work in them yet. Now — it was not his 
absence alone that caused the change — they looked frail and 
old, as if each day’s natural trouble was a burden more than 
they could bear. For Nathan had heard sad reports about 
his only child, and had told them solemnly to his wife — as 
things too bad to be beheved, and yet, “ God help us if he is 
indeed such a lad as this ! ” Their eyes were become too 
dry and hollow for many tears ; they sat together, hand in 
hand; and shivered, and sighed, and did not speak many 
words, or dare to look at each other : and then Hester had 
said — 

“ We mauna tell th’ lass. Young folks’ hearts break wi’ 
a httle, and she’d be apt to fancy it were true.” Here the old 
woman’s voice broke into a kind of piping cry; but she 
struggled, and her next words were all right. “ We mauna 
tell her : he’s bound to be fond on her, and, may be, if she 
thinks well on him, and loves him, it will bring him straight ! ” 

“ God grant it ! ” said Nathan. 

“ God shall grant it ! ” said Hester, passionately moaning 
out her words ; and then repeating them, alas ! with a vain 
repetition. 

“ It’s a bad place for lying, is Highminster,” said she at 
length, as if impatient of the silence. “ I never knowed such 
a place for getting up stories. But Bessy knows nought on 
’em, and nother you nor me belie’es ’em, that’s one blessing.” 

But, if they did not in their hearts believe them, how came 
they to look so sad and worn, beyond what mere age could 
make them ? 

Then came round another year, another winter, yet more 
miserable than the last. This year, with the primroses, came 
Benjamin ; a bad, hard, flippant young man, with yet enough 
of specious manners and handsome countenance to make his 
appearance striking at first to those to whom the aspect of a 
London fast young man of the lowest order is strange and 

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new. Just at first, as he sauntered in with a swagger and 
an air of indifference, which was partly assumed, partly real, 
his old parents felt a simple kind of awe of him, as if he were 
not their son, but a real gentleman ; but they had too much 
fine instinct in their homely natures not to know, after a very 
few minutes had passed, that this was not a true prince. 

“ Whatten ever does he mean,” said Hester to her niece, 
as soon as they were alone, “ by a’ them maks and wear- 
locks? And he minces his words, as if his tongue were 
clipped short, or spht like a magpie’s. Hech ! London is as 
bad as a hot day i’ August for spoiling good flesh ; for he 
were a good-looking lad when he went up ; and now, look at 
him, with his skin gone into lines and flourishes, just like the 
first page on a copybook.” 

“ I think he looks a good deal better, aunt, for them new- 
fashioned whiskers ! ” said Bessy, blushing still at the remem- 
brance of the kiss he had given her on first seeing her — a 
pledge, she thought, poor girl, that, in spite of his long silence 
in letter- writing, he still looked upon her as his troth-plight 
wife. There were things about him which none of them 
liked, although they never spoke of them ; yet there was also 
something to gratify them in the way in which he remained 
quiet at Nab-End, instead of seeking variety, as he had for- 
merly done, by constantly stealing off to the neighbouring 
town. His father had paid all the debts that he knew of, 
soon after Benjamin had gone up to London ; so there were 
no duns that his parents knew of to alarm him, and keep him 
at home. And he went out in the morning with the old man, 
his father, and lounged by his side, as Nathan went round 
his fields, with busy yet infirm gait ; having heart, as he would 
have expressed it, in all that was going on, because at length 
his son seemed to take an interest in the farming affairs, and 
stood patiently by his side, while he compared his own small 
galloways with the great shorthorns looming over his neigh- 
bour’s hedge. 

“ It’s a slovenly way, thou seest, that of selhng th’ milk ; 
folk don’t care whether it’s good or not, so that they get 

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their pint-measure full of stuff that’s watered afore it leaves 
th’ beast, instead o’ honest cheating by the help o’ th’ pump. 
But look at Bessy’s butter, what skill it shows ! part her 
own manner o’ making, and part good choice o’ cattle. It’s 
a pleasure to see her basket, a’ packed ready for to go to 
market; and it’s noan o’ a pleasure for to see the buckets 
fu’ of their blue starch- water as yon beasts give. I’m think- 
ing they crossed th’ breed wi’ a pump not long sin’. Hech ! 
but our Bessy’s a clever canny wench ! I sometimes think 
thou’lt be for gie’ing up th’ law, and taking to th’ oud trade, 
when thou wedst wi’ her ! ” This was intended to be a 
skilful way of ascertaining whether there was any ground 
for the old farmer’s wish and prayer, that Benjamin might 
give up the law and return to the primitive occupation of his 
father. Nathan dared to hope it now, since his son had 
never made much by his profession, owing, as he had said, 
to his want of a connection ; and the farm, and the stock, 
and the clean wife, too, were ready to his hand ; and Nathan 
could safely rely on himself never, in his most unguarded 
moments, to reproach his son with the hardly-earned hundreds 
that had been spent on his education. So the old man 
Hstened with painful interest to the answer which his son 
was evidently struggling to make, coughing a httle and blow- 
ing his nose, before he spoke. 

“ Well, you see, father, law is a precarious livehhood ; 
a man, as I may express myself, has no chance in the pro- 
fession unless he is known — known to the judges, and tip-top 
barristers, and that sort of thing. Now, you see, my mother 
and you have no acquaintance that you may call exactly in 
that line. But luckily I have met with a man, a friend, as 
I may say, who is really a first-rate fellow, knowing every- 
body, from the Lord Chancellor downwards; and he has 
offered me a share in his business — a partnership, in 
sJiort ” He hesitated a little. 

“ I’m sure that’s uncommon kind of the gentleman,” said 
Nathan. “I should like for to thank him mysen; for it’s 
not many as would pick up a young chap out o’ th’ dirt, as 

223 


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it were, and say ‘ Here’s hauf my good fortune for you, sir, 
and your very good health ! ’ Most on ’em, when they’re 
gettin’ a bit o’ luck, run off wi’ it to keep it a’ to themselves, 
and gobble it down in a corner. What may be his name ? 
for I should like to know it.” 

“ You don’t quite apprehend me, father. A great deal 
of what you’ve said is true to the letter. People don’t hke to 
share their good luck, as you say.” 

“ The more credit to them as does,” broke in Nathan. 

“ Ay, but, you see, even such a fine fellow as my friend 
Cavendish does not like to give away half his good practice 
for nothing. He expects an equivalent.” 

“ ‘ An equivalent ? ’” said Nathan ; his voice had dropped 
down an octave. “ And what may that be ? There’s always 
some meaning in grand words, I take it ; though I am not 
book-larned enough to find it out.” 

“ Why, in this case, the equivalent he demands for taking 
me into partnership, and afterwards relinquishing the whole 
business to me, is three hundred pounds down.” 

Benjamin looked sideways from under his eyes, to see 
how his father took the proposition. His father struck his 
stick deep down in the ground ; and, leaning one hand upon 
it, faced round at him. 

“ Then thy fine friend may go and be hanged. Three 
bunder pounds I I’ll be darned an’ danged too, if I know 
where to get ’em, if I’d be making a fool o’ thee an’ mysen 
too.” 

He was out of breath by this time. His son took his 
father’s first words in dogged silence ; it was but the burst of 
surprise he had led himself to expect, and did not daunt him 
for long. 

“ I should think, sir ” 

“ ‘ Sir ’ — whatten for dost thou ‘ sir ’ me ? Is them your 
manners? I’m plain Nathan Huntroyd, who never took 
on to be a gentleman ; but I have paid my way up to this 
time, which I shannot do much longer, if I’m to have a son 
coming an’ asking me for three hundred pound, just meet 

224 


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same as if I were a cow, and had nothing to do but let down 
my milk to the first person as strokes me.” 

“ Well, father,” said Benjamin, with an affectation of 
frankness ; “ then there’s nothing for me but to do as I have 
often planned before — go and emigrate.” 

“ And what ? ” said his father, looking sharply and steadily 
at him. 

“Emigrate. Go to America, or India, or some colony 
where there would be an opening for a young man of 
spirit.” 

Benjamin had reserved this proposition for his trump 
card, expecting by means of it to carry all before him. But, 
to his surprise, his father plucked his stick out of the hole 
he had made when he so vehemently thrust it into the 
ground, and walked on four or five steps in advance ; there 
he stood still again, and there was a dead silence for a few 
minutes. 

“ It ’ud, may be, be the best thing thou couldst do,” the 
father began. Benjamin set his teeth hard to keep in curses. 
It was well for poor Nathan he did not look round then, and 
see the look his son gave him. “ But it would come hard 
like upon us, upon Hester and me ; for, whether thou’rt a 
good ’un or not, thou’rt our flesh and blood, our only bairn ; 
and, if thou’rt not all as a man could wish, it’s, may be, been 

the fault on our pride i’ the It ’ud kill the missus, if he 

went off to Amerikay, and Bess, too, the lass as thinks so 
much on him ! ” The speech, originally addressed to his son, 
had wandered off into a monologue — as keenly listened to by 
Benjamin, however, as if it had all been spoken to him. 
After a pause of consideration, his father turned round: 
“ Yon man — I wunnot call him a friend o’ yourn, to think 
of asking you for such a mint o’ money — is not th’ only 
one. I’ll be bound, as could give ye a start i’ the law ? Other 
folks ’ud, may be, do it for less ? ” 

“ Not one of ’em ; to give me equal advantages,” said 
Benjamin, thinking he perceived signs of relenting. ^ 

“ Well, then, thou may’st tell him that it’s nother he nor 

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thee as ’ll see th’ sight o’ three hundred pound o’ my money. 
I’ll not deny as I’ve a bit laid up again’ a rainy day ; it’s not 
so much as thatten, though ; and a part on it is for Bessy, as 
has been like a daughter to us.” 

“ But Bessy is to be your real daughter some day, when 
I’ve a home to take her to,” said Benjamin ; for he played 
very fast and loose, even in his own mind, with his engage- 
ment with Bessy. Present with her, when she was looking 
her brightest and best, he behaved to her as if they were 
engaged lovers ; absent from her, he looked upon her rather 
as a good wedge, to be driven into his parents’ favour on his 
behalf. Now, however, he was not exactly untrue in speak- 
ing as if he meant to make her his wife; for the thought 
was in his mind, though he made use of it to work upon his 
father. 

“It will be a dree day for us, then,” said the old man. 
“ But God ’ll have us in His keeping, and ’ll, may-happen, be 
taking more care on us i’ heaven by that time than Bess, 
good lass as she is, has had on us at Nab-End. Her heart 
is set on thee, too. But, lad, I hanna gotten the three 
bunder ; I keeps my cash i’ th’ stocking, thou know’st, till 
it reaches fifty pound, and then I takes it to Eipon Bank. 
Now the last scratch they’n gi’en me made it just two- 
hunder, and I hanna but on to fifteen pound yet i’ the 
stockin’, and I meant one bunder an’ the red cow’s calf to be 
for Bess, she’s ta’en such pleasure like i’ rearing it.” 

Benjamin gave a sharp glance at his father, to see if he 
was telling the truth ; and, that a suspicion of the old man, 
his father, had entered into the son’s head, tells enough of 
his own character. 

“ I canna do it, I canna do it, for sure ; although I shall 
like to think as I had helped on the wedding. There’s the 
black heifer to be sold yet, and she’ll fetch a matter of ten 
pound ; but a deal on’t will be needed for seed-corn, for the 
arable did but bad last year, and I thought I would try— I’ll 
tell thee what, lad ! I’ll make it as though Bess lent thee 
her bunder, only thou must give her a writ of hand for it ; 

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and thou shalt have a’ the money i’ Eipon Bank, and see if 
the lawyer wunnot let thee have a share of what he offered 
thee at three hunder for two. I dunnot mean for to wrong 
him ; hut thou must get a fair share for the money. At times, 
I think thou’rt done by folk ; now I wadna have you cheat 
a bairn of a brass farthing ; same time, I wadna have thee so 
soft as to be cheated.” 

To explain this, it should be told that some of the bills, 
which Benjamin had received money from his father to pay, 
had been altered so as to cover other and less creditable 
expenses which the young man had incurred ; and the simple 
old farmer, who had still much faith left in him for his boy, 
was acute enough to perceive that he had paid above the 
usual price for the articles he had purchased. 

After some hesitation, Benjamin agreed to receive the 
two hundred, and promised to employ it to the best advantage 
in setting himself up in business. He had, nevertheless, a 
strange hankering after the additional fifteen pounds that 
was left to accumulate in the stocking. It was his, he 
thought, as heir to his father ; and he soon lost some of his 
usual complaisance for Bessy that evening, as he dwelt on 
the idea that there was money being laid by for her, and 
grudged it to her even in imagination. He thought more of 
this fifteen pounds that he was not to have than of all the 
hardly-earned and humbly-saved two hundred that he was 
to come into possession of. Meanwhile, Nathan was in 
unusual spirits that evening. He was so generous and 
affectionate at heart, that he had an unconscious satisfaction 
in having helped two people on the road^o happiness by the 
sacrifice of the greater part of his property. The very fact 
of having trusted his son so largely seemed to make 
Benjamin more worthy of trust in his father’s estimation. 
The sole idea he tried to banish was, that, if all came to pass 
as he hoped, both Benjamin and Bessy would be settled far 
away from Nab-End ; but then he had a child-like reliance 
that “ God would take care of him and his missus, somehow 
or anodder. It wur o’ no use looking too far ahead.” 

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Bessy had to hear many unintelligible jokes from her 
uncle that night, for he made no doubt that Benjamin had 
told her all that had passed ; whereas the truth was, his son 
had said never a word to his cousin on the subject. 

When the old couple were in bed, Nathan told his wife 
of the promise he had made to his son, and the plan in life 
which the advance of the two hundred was to promote. Poor 
Hester was a little startled at the sudden change in the 
destination of the sum, which she had long thought of with 
secret pride as “ money i’ th’ bank.” But she was willing 
enough to part with it, if necessary, for Benjamin. Only, 
how such a sum could be necessary, was the puzzle. But 
even this perplexity was jostled out of her mind by the over- 
whelming idea, not only of “ our Ben ” settling in London, 
but of Bessy going there too as his wife. This great trouble 
swallowed up all care about money, and Hester shivered and 
sighed all the night through with distress. In the morning, 
as Bessy was kneading the bread, her aunt, who had been 
sitting by the fire in an unusual manner, for one of her active 
habits, said — 

“I reckon we maun go to th’ shop for our bread; an’ 
that’s a thing I never thought to come to so long as I lived.” 

Bessy looked up from her kneading, surprised. 

“ I’m sure, I’m noan going to eat their nasty stuff. What 
for do ye want to get baker’s bread, aunt? This dough 
will rise aS high as a kite in a south wind.” 

“I’m not up to kneading as I could do once; it welly 
breaks my back ; and, when thou’rt off in London, I reckon 
we maun buy our bread, first time in my life.” 

“ I’m not a-goin to London,” said Bessy, kneading away 
with fresh resolution, and growing very red, either with the 
idea or the exertion. 

“ But our Ben is going partner wi’ a great London lawyer ; 
and thou know’st he’ll not tarry long but what he’ll fetch 
thee.” 

“ Now, aunt,” said Bessy, stripping her arms of the dough, 
but still not looking up, “if that’s all, don’t fret yourself. 

2;28 


The Crooked Branch 

Ben will have twenty minds in his head, afore he settles, 
eyther in business or in wedlock. I sometimes wonder,” she 
said, with increasing vehemence, “ why I go on thinking on 
him ; for I dunnot think he thinks on me, when I’m out o’ 
sight. I’ve a month’s mind to try and forget him this time, 
when he leaves us — that I have ! ” 

“ For shame, wench ! and he to be planning and pur- 
posing, all for thy sake ! It wur only yesterday as he wur 
talking to thy uncle, and mapping it out so clever ; only, thou 
seest, wench, it’ll be dree work for us when both thee and 
him is gone.” 

The old woman began to cry the kind of tearless cry of 
the aged. Bessy hastened to comfort her; and the two 
talked, and grieved, and hoped, and planned for the days 
that now were to be, till they ended, the one in being con- 
soled, the other in being secretly happy. 

Nathan and his son came back from Highminster that 
evening, with their business transacted in the round-about 
way which was most satisfactory to the old man. If he 
had thought it necessary to take half as much pains in 
ascertaining the truth of the plausible details by which his 
son bore out the story of the offered partnership, as he did in 
trying to get his money conveyed to London in the most 
secure manner, it would have been well for him. But he 
knew nothing of all this, and acted in the way which satisfied 
his anxiety best. He came home tired, but content ; not in 
such high spirits as on the night before, but as easy in his 
mind as he could be on the eve of his son’s departure. 
Bessy, pleasantly agitated by her aunt’s tale of the morning 
of her cousin’s true love for her (“ what ardently we wish 
we long believe”) and the plan which was to end in their 
marriage — end to her, the woman, at least — looked almost 
pretty in her bright, blushing comeliness, and more than 
once, as she moved about from kitchen to dairy, Benjamin 
pulled her towards him, and gave her a kiss. To all such 
proceedings the old* couple were wilfully blind; and, as night 
drew on, every one became sadder and quieter, thinking of 

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the parting that was to he on the morrow. As the hours 
slipped away, Bessy too became subdued; and, by-and-by, 
her simple cunning was exerted to get Benjamin to sit down 
next his mother, whose very heart was yearning after him, 
as Bessy saw. When once her child was placed by her side, 
and she had got possession of his hand, the old woman kept 
stroking it, arid murmuring long unused words of endearment, 
such as she had spoken to him while he was yet a little child. 
But all this was wearisome to him. As long as he might 
play with, and plague, and caress Bessy, he had not been 
sleepy ; but now he yawned loudly. Bessy could have boxed 
his ears for not curbing this gaping; at any rate, he need 
not have done it so openly — so almost ostentatiously. His 
mother was more pitiful. 

“ Thou’rt tired, my lad ! ” said she, putting her hand 
fondly on his shoulder; but it fell off, as he stood up 
suddenly, and said — 

“ Yes, deuced tired ! I’m off to bed.” x\nd with a rough, 
careless kiss all round, even to Bessy, as if he was “ deuced 
tired” of playing the lover, he was gone; leaving the 
three to gather up their thoughts slowly, and follow him 
upstairs. 

He seemed almost impatient at them for rising betimes 
to see him off the next morning, and made no more of a 
good-bye than some such speech as this : “ Well, good folk, 
when next I see you, I hope you’ll have merrier faces than 
you have to-day. Why, you might be going to a funeral; 
it’s enough to scare a man from the place ; you look quite 
ugly to what you did last night, Bess.” 

He was gone ; and they turned into the house, and 
settled to the long day’s work without many words about 
their loss. They had no time for unnecessary talking, indeed ; 
for much had been left undone, during his short visit, that 
ought to have been done, and they had now to work 
double tides. Hard work was their comfort for many a long 
day. 

For some time Benjamin’s letters, if not frequent, were 
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full of exultant accounts of his well-doing. It is true that 
the details of his prosperity were somewhat vague ; but the 
fact was broadly and unmistakably stated. Then came longer 
pauses ; shorter letters, altered in tone. About a year after 
he had left them, Nathan received a letter which bewildered 
and irritated him exceedingly. Something had gone wrong — 
what, Benjamin did not say — but the letter ended with a 
request that was almost a demand, for the remainder of his 
father’s savings, whether in the stocking or the bank. Now, 
the year had not been prosperous with Nathan ; there had 
been an epidemic among cattle, and he had suffered along 
with his neighbours ; and, moreover, the price of cows, when 
he had bought some to repair his wasted stock, was higher 
than he had ever remembered it before. The fifteen pounds 
in the stocking, which Benjamin left, had diminished to little 
more than three; and to have that required of him in so 
peremptory a manner ! Before Nathan imparted the con- 
tents of this letter to any one (Bessy and her aunt had gone 
to market in a neighbour’s cart that day), he got pen and 
ink and paper, and wrote back an ill-spelt, but very explicit 
and stern negative. Benjamin had had his portion ; and if 
he could not make it do, so much the worse for him; his 
father had no more to give him. That was the substance of 
the letter. 

The letter was written, directed, and sealed, and given to 
the country postman, returning to Highminster after his day’s 
distribution and collection of letters, before Hester and Bessy 
came back from market. It had been a pleasant day of 
neighbourly meeting and sociable gossip; prices had been 
high, and they were in good spirits — only agreeably tired, and 
full of small pieces of news. It was some time before they 
found out how flatly aU their talk fell on the ears of the stay- 
at-home listener. But, when they saw that his depression 
was caused by something beyond their powers of accounting 
for by any little every-day cause, they urged him to tell them 
what was the matter. His anger had not gone off. It had 
rather increased by dwelling upon it, and he spoke it out in 

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good, resolute terms ; and, long ere he had ended, the two 
women were as sad, if not as angry, as himself. Indeed, it 
was many days before either feeling wore away in the minds 
of those who entertained them. Bessy was the soonest 
comforted, because she found a vent for her sorrow in action : 
action that was half as a kind of compensation for many a 
sharp word that she had spoken, when her cousin had done 
anything to displease her on his last visit, and half because 
she believed that he never could have written such a letter 
to his father, unless his want of money had been very pressing 
and real ; though how he could ever have wanted money so 
soon, after such a heap of it had been given to him, was more 
than she could justly say. Bessy got out all her savings of 
little presents of sixpences and shillings, ever since she had 
been a child — of all the money she had gained for the eggs 
of two hens, called her own ; she put the whole together, 
and it was above two pounds — two pounds five and seven- 
pence, to speak accurately — and, leaving out the penny as a 
nest-egg for her future savings, she made up the rest in a 
little parcel, and sent it, with a note, to Benjamin’s address 
in London : — 

“ From a well-wisher. 

“ L' Benjamin, — Unkle has ' lost 2 cows and a vast of 
monney. He is a good deal Angored, but more Troubled. 
So no more at present. Hopeing this will finding you well 
As it leaves us. Tho’ lost to Site, To Memory Dear. Ee- 
payment not kneeded. — Your effectonet cousin, 

“Elizabeth Eose.” 

When this packet was once fairly sent off, Bessy began 
to sing again over her work. She never expected the mere 
form of acknowledgment ; indeed, she had such faith in the 
carrier (who took parcels to York, whence they were for- 
warded to London by coach), that she felt sure he would go 
on purpose to London to deliver anything intrusted to him, 
if he had not full confidence in the person, persons, coach 

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and horses, to whom he committed it. Therefore she was 
not anxious that she did not hear of its arrival. “ Giving a 
thing to a man as one knows,” said she to herself, “ is a vast 
different to poking a thing through a hole into a box, th’ 
inside of which one has never clapped eyes on; and yet 
letters get safe, some ways or another.” (The belief in the 
infallibility of the post was destined to a shock before long.) 
But she had a secret yearning for Benjamin’s thanks, and 
some of the old words of love that she had been without so 
long. Nay, she even thought — when, day after day, week 
after week, passed by without a line — that he might be 
winding up his affairs in that weary, wasteful London, and 
coming back to Nab-End to thank her in person. 

One day — her aunt was upstairs, inspecting the summer’s 
make of cheeses, her uncle out in the fields — the postman 
brought a letter into the kitchen to Bessy. A country post- 
man, even now, is not much pressed for time ; and in those 
days there were but few letters to distribute, and they were 
only sent out from Highminster once a week into the district 
in which Nab-End was situated; and, on those occasions, 
the letter-carrier usually paid morning calls on the various 
people for whom he had letters. So, half-standing by the 
dresser, half- sitting on it, he began to rummage out his bag. 
“It’s a queer-like thing I’ve got for Nathan this time. I 
am afraid it will bear ill news in it ; for there’s ‘ Dead Letter 
Office ’ stamped on the top of it.” 

“ Lord save us ! ” said .Bessy, and sat down on the nearest 
chair, as white as a sheet. In an instant, however, she was 
up ; and, snatching the ominous letter out of the man’s hands, 
she pushed him before her out of the house, and said, “ Be 
off wi’ thee, afore aunt comes down ” ; and ran past him 
as hard as she could, till she reached the field where she 
expected to find her uncle. 

“Uncle,” said she, breathless, “what is it? Oh, uncle, 
speak ! Is he dead ? ” 

Nathan’s hands trembled, and his eyes dazzled. “ Take 
it,” he said, “ and tell me what it is.” 

233 


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“It’s a letter — it’s from you to Benjamin, it is — and 
there’s words written on it, ‘ Not known at the address 
given ; ’ so they’ve sent it back to the writer — that’s you, 
uncle. Oh, it gave me such a start, with them nasty words 
written outside ! ” 

Nathan had taken the letter back into his own hands, 
and was turning it over, while he strove to understand what 
the quick-witted Bessy had picked up at a glance. But he 
arrived at a different conclusion. 

“ He’s dead ! ” said he. “ The lad is dead, and he never 
knowed how as I were sorry I wrote to ’un so sharp. My 
lad ! my lad ! ” Nathan sat down on the ground where he 
stood, and covered his face with his old, withered hands. 
The letter returned to him was one which he had written, 
with infinite pains and at various times, to tell his child, in 
kinder words and at greater length than he had done before, 
the reasons why he could not send him the money demanded. 
And now Benjamin was dead ; nay, the old man immediately 
jumped to the conclusion that his child had been starved to 
death, without money, in a wild, wide, strange place. All 
he could say at first was — 

“ My heart, Bess — my heart is broken ! ” And he put 
his hand to his side, still keeping his shut eyes covered with 
the other, as though he never wished to see the hght of day 
again. Bessy was down by his side in an instant, holding 
him in her arms, chafing and kissing him. 

“ It’s noan so bad, uncle ; he’s not dead ; the letter does 
not say that, dunnot think it. He’s flitted from that lodging, 
and the lazy tykes dunna know where to find him ; and so 
they just send y’ back th’ letter, instead of trying fra’ house 
to house, as Mark Benson would. I’ve always heerd tell 
on south-country folk for laziness. He’s noan dead, uncle ; 
he’s just flitted ; and he’ll let us know afore long where he’s 
getten to. May be, it’s a cheaper place; for that lawyer has 
cheated him, ye reck’lect, and he’ll be trying to live for as 
little as he can, that’s all, uncle. Dunnot take on so ; for it 
doesna say he’s dead.” 


234 


The Crooked Branch 

By this time Bessy was crying with agitation, although 
she firmly believed in her own view of the case, and had 
felt the opening of the ill-favoured letter as a great relief. 
Presently she began to urge, both with word and action, 
upon her uncle, that he should sit no longer on the damp 
grass. She pulled him up ; for he was very stiff, and, as he 
said, “ all shaken to dithers.” She made him walk about, 
repeating over and over again her solution of the case, always 
in the same words, beginning again and again, “ He’s noan 
dead; it’s just been a flitting,” and so on. Nathan shook 
his head, and tried to be convinced; but it was a steady 
behef in his own heart for all that. He looked so deathly 
ill on his return home with Bessy (for she would not let 
him go on with his day’s work), that his wife made sure he 
had taken cold ; and he, weary and indifferent to life, was 
glad to subside into bed and the rest from exertion which 
his real bodily illness gave him. Neither Bessy nor he 
spoke of the letter again, even to each other, for many days ; 
and she found means to stop Mark Benson’s tongue and 
satisfy his kindly curiosity, by giving him the rosy side of 
her own view of the case. 

Nathan got up again, an older man in looks and con- 
stitution by ten years for that week of bed. His wife gave 
him many a scolding on his imprudence for sitting down 
in the wet field, if ever so tired. But now she, too, was 
beginning to be uneasy at Benjamin’s long- continued silence. 
She could not write herself ; but she urged her husband many 
a time to send a letter to ask for news of her lad. He said 
nothing in reply for some time ; at length, he told her he 
would write next Sunday afternoon. Sunday was his general 
day for writing, and this Sunday he meant to go to church 
for the first time since his illness. On Saturday he was 
very persistent, against his wife’s wishes (backed by Bessy 
as hard as she could), in resolving to go into Highminster 
to market. The change would do him good, he said. But 
he came home tired, and a httle mysterious in his ways. 
When he went to the shippon the last thing at night, he 

235 


The Crooked Branch 

asked Bessy to go with him, and hold the lantern, while he 
looked at an ailing cow ; and, when they were fairly out of 
the ear-shot of the house, he pulled a httle shop-parcel from 
his pocket and said — 

“ Thou’lt put that on ma Sunday hat, wilt’ou, lass ? It’ll 
be a bit on a comfort to me ; for I know my lad’s dead and 
gone, though I dunna speak on it, for fear o’ grieving th’ old 
woman and ye.” 

“ I’ll put it on, uncle, if But he’s noan dead.” 

(Bessy was sobbing.) 

“ I know — I know, lass. I dunnot wish other folk to 
hold my opinion ; but I’d like to wear a bit o’ crape out o’ 
respect to my boy. It ’ud have done me good for to have 
ordered a black coat; but she’d see if I had na’ on my 
wedding-coat, Sundays, for a’ she’s losing her eyesight, poor 
old wench! But she’ll ne’er take notice o’ a bit o’ crape. 
Thou’lt put it on all canny and tidy.” 

So Nathan went to church with a strip of crape, as 
narrow as Bessy durst venture to make it, round his hat. 
Such is the contradictoriness of human nature that, though 
he was most anxious his wife should not hear of his convic- 
tion that their son was dead, he was half-hurt that none of 
his neighbours noticed his sign of mourning so far as to ask 
him for whom he wore it. 

But after a while, when they never heard a word from 
or about Benjamin, the household wonder as to what had 
become of him grew so painful and strong, that Nathan no 
longer kept his idea to himself. Poor Hester, however, 
rejected it with her whole will, heart, and soul. She could 
not and would not believe — nothing should make her believe 
— that her only child Benjamin had died without some sign 
of love or farewell to her. No arguments could shake her in 
this. She believed that, if all natural means of communica- 
tion between her and him had been cut off at the last 
supreme moment — if death had come upon him in an 
instant, sudden and unexpected — her intense love would 
have been supematurally made conscious of the blank. 

236 


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Nathan at times tried to feel glad that she could still hope to 
see the lad again ; but at other moments he wanted her 
sympathy in his grief, his self-reproach, his weary wonder as 
to how and what they had done wrong in the treatment of 
their son, that he had been such a care and sorrow to his 
parents. Bessy was convinced, first by her aunt, and then 
by her uncle — honestly convinced — on both sides of the 
argument, and so, for the time, able to sympathise with 
each. But she lost her youth in a very few months ; she 
looked set and middle-aged, long before she ought to have 
done, and rarely smiled and never sang again. 

All sorts of. new arrangements were required by the blow 
which told so miserably upon the energies of all the house- 
hold at Nab-end. Nathan could no longer go about and 
direct his two men, taking a good turn of work himself at 
busy times. Hester lost her interest in the dairy ; for which, 
indeed, her increasing loss of sight unfitted her. Bessy 
would either do field-work, or attend to the cows and the 
shippon, or churn, or make cheese; she did all well, no 
longer merrily, but with something of stern cleverness. But 
she was not sorry when her uncle, one evening, told her aunt 
and her that a neighbouring farmer. Job Kirkby, had made 
him an offer to take so much of his land off his hands as 
would leave him only pasture enough for two cows, and no 
arable to attend to ; while Farmer Kirkby did not wish to 
interfere with anything in the house, only would be glad to 
use some of the out-building for his fattening cattle. 

“We can do wi’ Hawky and Daisy ; it’ll leave us eight 
or ten pound .o’ butter to take to market i’ summer time, 
and keep us fra’ thinking too much, which is what I’m 
dreading on as I get into years.” 

“ Ay,” said his wife. “ Thou’ll not have to go so far 
a-field, if it’s only the Aster- Toft as is on thy hands. And 
Bess will have to gie up her pride i’ cheese, and tak’ to 
making cream-butter. I’d allays a fancy for trying at cream- 
butter ; but th’ whey had to be used ; else, where I come fra’, 
Ihey’d.never ha’ looked near whey-butter.” . ^ 


The Crooked Branch 

When Hester was left alone with Bessy, she said, in 
allusion to this change of plan — 

“ I’m thankful to the Lord that it is as it is ; for I were 
allays af eared Nathan would have to gie up the house and 
farm altogether, and then the lad would na know where to 
find us when he came back fra’ Merikay. He’s gone there 
for to make his fortune. I’ll be bound. Keep up thy heart, 
lass, he’ll be home some day ; and have sown his wild oats. 
Eh! but thatten’s a pretty story i’ the Gospel about the 
Prodigal, who’d to eat the pigs’ vittle at one time, but ended 
i’ clover in his father’s house. And I’m sure our Nathan ’ll 
be ready to forgive him, and love him, and .make much of 
him — may be, a deal more nor me, who never gave in to ’s 
death. It’ll be liken to a resurrection to our Nathan.” 

Farmer Kirkby, then, took by far the greater part of the 
land belonging to Nab-End Farm ; and the work about the 
rest, and about the two remaining cows, was easily done by 
three pairs of willing hands, with a httle occasional assist- 
ance. The Kirkby family were pleasant enough to have to 
deal with. There was a son, a stiff, grave bachelor, who 
was very particular and methodical about his work, and rarely 
spoke to any one. But Nathan took it into his head that 
John Kirkby was looking after Bessy, and was a good deal 
troubled in his mind in consequence ; for it was the first 
time he had to face the effects of his belief in his son’s death ; 
and he discovered, to his own surprise, that he had not that 
implicit faith which would make it easy for him to look upon 
Bessy as the wife of another man than the one to whom 
she had been betrothed in her youth. As, however, John 
Kirkby seemed in no hurry to make his intentions (if 
indeed he had any) clear to Bessy, it was only now and 
then that his jealousy on behalf of his lost son seized upon 
Nathan. 

But people, old, and in deep hopeless sorrow, grow 
irritable at times, however they may repent and struggle 
against their irritability. There were days when Bessy had 
to bear a good deal from her uncle ; but she loved birn so 


The Crooked Braneh 

dearly and respected him so much, that, high as her temper 
was to all other people, she never returned him a rough or 
impatient word. And she had a reward in the conviction of 
his deep, true affection for her, and her aunt’s entire and 
most sweet dependence upon her. 

One day, however — it was near the end of November — 
Bessy had had a good deal to bear, that seemed more than 
usually unreasonable, on the part of her uncle. The truth 
was, that one of Kirkby’s cows was ill, and John Kirkby was 
a good deal about in the farmyard; Bessy was interested 
about the animal, and had helped in preparing a mash over 
their own fire, that had to be given warm to the sick 
creature. If John had been out of the way, there would 
have been no one more anxious about the affair than Nathan : 
both because he was naturally kind-hearted and neighbourly, 
and also because he was rather proud of his reputation for 
knowledge in the diseases of cattle. But because John was 
about, and Bessy helping a little in what had to be done, 
Nathan would do nothing, and chose to assume that 
“nothing to think on ailed th’ beast; but lads and lasses 
were allays fain to be feared on something.” Now John 
was upwards of forty, and Bessy nearly eight-and-twenty ; 
so the terms lads and lasses did not exactly apply to their 
case. 

When Bessy brought the milk in from their own cows, 
towards half-past five o’clock, Nathan bade her make the 
doors, and not be running out i’ the dark and cold about 
other folks’ business ; and, though Bessy was a little sur- 
prised and a good deal annoyed at his tone, she sat down to 
her supper without making a remonstrance. It had long 
been Nathan’s custom to look out the last thing at night, to 
see “ what mak’ o’ weather it wur ” ; and when, towards 
half-past eight, he got his stick and went out — two or three 
steps from the door, which opened into the house-place 
where they were sitting — Hester put her hand on her niece’s 
shoulder and said — 

“ He’s gotten a touch o’ rheumatics, as twinges him and 

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makes him speak so sharp. I didna like to ask thee afore 
him, but how’s yon poor beast ? ” 

“ Very ailing, belike. John Kirkby wur off for th’ cow- 
doctor when I cam in. I reckon they’ll have to stop up 
wi’t a’ night.” 

Since their sorrows, her uncle had taken to reading a 
chapter in the Bible aloud, the last thing at night. He 
could not read fluently, and often hesitated long over a word, 
which he miscalled at length ; but the very fact of opening 
the book seemed to soothe those old bereaved parents ; for 
it made them feel quiet and safe in the presence of God, and 
took them out of the cares and troubles of this world into 
that futurity which, however dim and vague, was to their 
faithful hearts as a sure and certain rest. This httle quiet 
time — Nathan sitting with his horn spectacles, the tallow 
candle between him and the Bible throwing a strong light 
on his reverent, earnest face ; Hester sitting on the other 
side of the fire, her head bowed in attentive listening; 
now and then shaking it, and moaning a little, but when a 
promise came, or any good tidings of great joy, saying 
“ Amen ” with fervour ; Bessy by her aunt, perhaps her 
mind a little wandering to some household cares, or it might 
be on thoughts of those who were absent — this little quiet 
pause, I say, was grateful and soothing to this household, as 
a lullaby to a tired child. But this night, Bessy, sitting 
opposite to the long, low window, only shaded by a few 
geraniums that grew in the sill, and to the door alongside 
that window through which her uncle had passed not a 
quarter of an hour before, saw the wooden latch of the door 
gently and almost noiselessly lifted up, as if some one were 
trying it from the outside. 

She was startled, and watched again, intently ; but it was 
perfectly still now. She thought it must have been that it 
had not fallen into its proper place, when her uncle had 
come in and locked the door. It was just enough to make 
her uncomfortable, no more; and she almost persuaded 
herself it must have been fancy. Before going upstairs, 

240 


The Crooked Branch 

however, she went to the window, to look out into the dark- 
ness ; but all was still. Nothing to be seen ; nothing to be 
heard. So the three went quietly upstairs to bed. 

The house was little better than a cottage. The front 
door opened on a house-place, over which was the old 
couple’s bed-room. To the left, as you entered this pleasant 
house-place, and at close right angles with the entrance, was 
a door that led into the small parlour, which was Hester’s 
and Bessy’s pride, although not half as comfortable as the 
house-place, and never on any occasion used as a sitting-room. 
There were shells and bunches of honesty in the fireplace ; 
the best chest of drawers, and a company set of gaudy- 
coloured china, and a bright common carpet on the floor; 
but all failed to give it the aspect of the homely comfort and 
delicate cleanliness of the house- place. Over this parlour 
was the bedroom which Benjamin had slept in when a boy, 
when at home. It was kept, still, in a kind of readiness for 
him. The bed was yet there, in which none had slept since 
he had last done, eight or nine years ago ; and every now 
and then a warming-pan was taken quietly and silently up 
by his old mother, and the bed thoroughly aired. But this 
she did in her husband’s absence, and without saying a word 
to any one ; nor did Bessy offer to help her, though her eyes 
often filled with tears, as she saw her aunt still going through 
the hopeless service. But the room had become a receptacle 
for all unused things ; and there was always a comer of it 
appropriated to the winter’s store of apples. To the left of 
the house-place, as you stood facing the fire, on the side 
opposite to the window and outer door, were two other 
doors ; the one on the right led into a kind of back kitchen, 
and had a lean-to roof, and a door opening on to the farm- 
yard and back-premises ; the left-hand door gave on the 
stairs, underneath which was a closet, in which various house- 
hold treasures were kept ; and beyond that was the dairy, 
over which Bessy slept, her little chamber window opening 
just above the sloping roof of the back-kitchen. There 
were neither blinds nor shutters to any of the windows, either 

241 R 


The Crooked Branch 

upstairs or down ; the house was built of stone ; and there 
was heavy framework of the same material round the little 
casement windows, and the long, low window of the house- 
place was divided by what, in grander dwellings, would be 
called mullions. 

By nine o’clock this night of which I am speaking, all 
had gone upstairs to bed ; it was even later than usual, for 
the burning of candles was regarded so much in the light of 
an extravagance, that the household kept early hours even 
for country-folk. But, somehow, this evening, Bessy could 
not sleep ; although in general she was in deep slumber five 
minutes after her head touched the pillow. Her thoughts 
ran on the chances for John Kirkby’s cow, and a httle fear 
lest the disorder might be epidemic and spread to their own 
cattle. Across all these homely cares came a vivid, uncom- 
fortable recollection of the way in which the door-latch went 
up and down, without any sufficient agency to account for 
it. She felt more sure now than she had done downstairs, 
that it was a real movement, and no effect of her imagina- 
tion. She wished that it had not happened just when her 
uncle was reading, that she might at once have gone quick 
to the door, and convinced herself of the cause. As it was, 
her thoughts ran uneasily on the supernatural ; and thence 
to Benjamin, her dear cousin and playfellow, her early lover. 
She had long given him up as lost for ever to her, if not 
actually dead ; but this very giving him up for ever involved 
a free, full forgiveness of all his wrongs to her. She thought 
tenderly of him, as of one who might have been led astray 
in his later years, but who existed rather in her recollection 
as the innocent child, the spirited lad, the handsome, dashing 
young man. If John Kirkby’s quiet attentions had ever 
betrayed his wishes to Bessy — if indeed he ever had any 
wishes on the subject — her first feeling would have been to 
compare his weather-beaten, middle-aged face and figure 
with the face and figure she remembered well, but never 
more expected to see in this life. So thinking, she became 
very restless, and weary of bed, and, after long tossing and 

242 


The Crooked Branch 

turning, ending in a belief that she should never get to sleep 
at all that night, she went off soundly and suddenly. 

As suddenly was she wide awake, sitting up in bed, listen- 
ing to some noise that must have awakened her, but which 
was not repeated for some time. Surely it was in her uncle’s 
room — her uncle was up; but, for a minute or two, there 
was no further sound. Then she heard him open his door, 
and go downstairs, with hurried, stumbling steps. She now 
thought that her aunt must be ill, and hastily sprang out of 
bed, and was putting on her petticoat with hurried, trembling 
hands, and had just opened her chamber door, when she 
heard the front door undone, and a scuffle, as of the feet of 
several people, and many rude, passionate words, spoken 
hoarsely below the breath. Quick as thought she understood 
it all — the house was lonely — her uncle had the reputation 
of being well-to-do — they had pretended to be belated, and 
had asked their way or something. What a blessing that 
John Kirkby’s cow was sick, for there were several men 
watching with him ! She went back, opened her window, 
squeezed herself out, slid down the lean-to roof, and ran 
barefoot and breathless to the shippon — 

“John, John, for the love of God, come quick; there’s 
robbers in the house, and uncle and aunt ’ll be murdered ! ” 
she whispered, in terrified accents, through the closed and 
barred shippon door. In a moment it was undone, and 
John and the cow-doctor stood there, ready to act, if they 
but understood her rightly. Again she repeated her words, 
with broken, half -unintelligible explanations of what she as 
yet did not rightly understand. 

“ Front door is open, say’st thou ? ” said John, arming 
himself with a pitchfork, while the cow-doctor took some 
other implement. “ Then I reckon we’d best make for that 
way o’ getting into th’ house, and catch ’em all in a trap.” 

“ Eun ! run ! ” was all Bessy could say, taking hold of 
John Kirkby’s arm, and pulling him along with her. Swiftly 
did the three run to the house round the comer, and in at 
the open front-door. The men carried the horn lantern 

243 


The Crooked Branch 

they had been using in the shippon; and, by the sudden 
oblong light that it threw, Bessy saw the principal object 
of her anxiety, her uncle, lying stunned and helpless on 
the kitchen -floor. Her first thought was for him; for she 
had no idea that her aunt was in any immediate danger, 
although she heard the noise of feet, and fierce, subdued 
voices upstairs. 

“ Make th’ door behind us, lass. We’ll not let ’em 
escape ! ” said brave John Kirkby, dauntless in a good cause, 
though he knew not how many there might be above. The 
cow-doctor fastened and locked the door, saying, “ There ! ” 
in a defiant tone, as he put the key in his pocket. It was to 
be a struggle for life or death, or, at any rate, for effectual 
capture or desperate escape. Bessy kneeled down by her 
uncle, who did not speak nor give any sign of consciousness. 
Bessy raised his head by drawing a pillow off the settle, and 
putting it under him; she longed to go for water into the 
back kitchen, but the sound of a violent struggle, and of 
heavy blows, and of low, hard curses spoken through closed 
teeth, and muttered passion, as though breath were too much 
needed for action to be wasted in speech, kept her still and 
quiet by her uncle’s side in the kitchen, where the darkness 
might almost be felt, so thick and deep was it. Once — in a 
pause of her own heart’s beating — a sudden terror came over 
her ; she perceived, in that strange way in which the presence 
of a living creature forces itself on our consciousness in the 
darkest room, that some one was near her, keeping as still 
as she. It was not the poor old man’s breathing that she 
heard, nor the radiation of his presence that she felt ; some 
one else was in the kitchen ; another robber, perhaps, left to 
guard the old man, with murderous intent if his consciousness 
returned. Now Bessy was fully aware that self-preservation 
would keep her terrible companion quiet, as there was no 
motive for his betraying himself stronger than the desire of 
escape; any effort for which he, the unseen witness, must 
know would be rendered abortive by the fact of the door 
being locked. 

M4 


The Crooked Branch 

Yet, with the knowledge that he was there, close to her 
still, silent as the grave — with fearful, it might be deadly, 
unspoken thoughts in his heart — possibly even with keener 
and stronger sight than hers, as longer accustomed to the 
darkness, able to discern her figure and posture, and glaring 
at her like some wild beast — Bessy could not fail to shrink 
from the vision that her fancy presented ! And still the 
struggle went on upstairs ; feet slipping, blows sounding, 
and the wrench of intentioned aims, the strong gasps for 
breath, as the wrestlers paused for an instant. In one of 
these pauses, Bessy felt conscious of a creeping movement 
close to her, which ceased when the noise of the strife above 
died away, and was resumed when it again began. She was 
aware of it by some subtle vibration of the air, rather than 
by touch or sound. She was sure that he who had been 
close to her one minute as she knelt, was, the next, passing 
stealthily towards the inner door which led to the staircase. 
She thought he was going to join and strengthen his 
accomplices, and, with a great cry, she sprang after him; 
but just as she came to the doorway, through which some 
dim portion of light from the upper chambers came, she saw 
one man thrown downstairs, with such violence that he fell 
almost at her very feet, while the dark, creeping figure ghded 
suddenly away to the left, and as suddenly entered the closet 
beneath the stairs. Bessy had no time to wonder as to his 
purpose in so doing, whether he had at first designed to aid 
his accomplices in their desperate fight or not. He was an 
enemy, a robber, that was all she knew, and she sprang to 
the door of the closet, and in a trice had locked it on the 
outside. And then she stood frightened, panting in that dark 
corner, sick with terror lest the man who lay before her was 
either John Kirkby or the cow-doctor. If it were either of 
those friendly two, what would become of the other — of her 
uncle, her aunt, herself ? But, in a very few minutes, this 
wonder was ended ; her two defenders came slowly and 
heavily down the stairs, dragging with them a man, fierce, 
sullen, despairing— disabled with terrible blows, which had 

245 


The Crooked Branch 

made his face one bloody, swollen mass. As for that, neither 
John nor the cow-doctor was much more presentable. One 
of them bore the lantern in his teeth ; for all their strength 
was taken up by the weight of the fellow they were bearing. 

“ Take care,” said Bessy, from her comer ; “ there’s a 
chap just beneath your feet. I dunno know if he’s dead or 
alive ; and uncle lies on the floor just beyond.” 

They stood still on the stairs for a moment. Just then 
the robber they had thrown downstairs stirred and moaned. 

“ Bessy,” said John, “ mn off to th’ stable and fetch ropes 
and gearing for to bind ’em ; and we’ll rid the house on ’em, 
and thou can’st go see after th’ oud folks, who need it 
sadly.” 

Bessy was back in a very few minutes. When she 
came in, there was more light in the house-place, for some 
one had stirred up the raked fire. 

“ That felly makes as though his leg were broken,” said 
John, nodding towards the man still lying on the ground. 
Bessy felt almost sorry for him as they handled him — not 
over-gen tly — and bound him, only half -conscious, as hardly 
and tightly as they had done his fierce, surly companion- 
She even felt so sorry for his evident agony, as they turned 
him over and over, that she ra^ to get him a cup of water 
to moisten his lips. 

“ I’m loth to leave yo’ with him alone,” said John, 
“ though I’m thinking his leg is broken for sartin, and he 
can’t stir, even if he comes to hissel, to do yo’ any harm. 
But we’ll just take off this chap, and mak sure of him, and 
then one on us ’ll come back to yo’, and we can, may be, 
find a gate or so for yo’ to get shut on him out o’ th’ house. 
This felly’s made safe enough. I’ll be bound,” said he, 
looking at the burglar, who stood, bloody and black, with fell 
hatred on his sullen face. His eye caught Bessy’s, as hers 
fell on him with dread so evident that it made him smile ; 
and the look and the smile prevented the words from being 
spoken which were on Bessy’s lips. 

She dared not tell, before him, that an able-bodied 
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The Crooked Branch 

accomplice still remained in the house ; lest, somehow, the 
door which kept him a prisoner should be broken open and 
the fight renewed. So she only said to John, as he was 
leaving the house — 

“ Thou’U not be long away, for I’m af eared of being left 
wi’ this man.” 

“ He’ll noan do thee harm,” said John. 

“ No ! but I’m feared lest he should die. And there’s 
uncle and aunt. Come back soon, John ! ” 

“ Ay, ay ! ” said he, half-pleased ; “ I’ll be back, never 
fear me.” 

So Bessy shut the door after them, but did not lock it, 
for fear of mischances in the house, and went once more to 
her uncle, whose breathing, by this time, was easier than 
when she had first returned into the house -place with John 
and the doctor. By the light of the fire, too, she could now 
see that he had received a blow on the hpad, which was 
probably the occasion of his stupor. Bound this wound, 
which was bleeding pretty freely, Bessy put cloths dipped 
in cold water ; and then, leaving him for a time, she lighted 
a candle, and was about to go upstairs to her aunt, when, 
just as she was passing the bound and disabled robber, she 
heard her name softly, urgently called — 

“ Bessy, Bessy ! ” At first the voice sounded so close 
that she thought it must be the unconscious wretch at her 
feet. But, once again, that voice thrilled through her — 

“ Bessy, Bessy ! for God’s sake, let me out ! ” 

She went to the stair-closet door, and tried to speak, 
but could not, her heart beat so terribly. Again, close to 
her ear — 

“ Bessy, Bessy ! they’ll be back directly ; let me out, 
I say ! For God’s sake, let me out ! ” And he began to 
kick violently against the panels. 

“ Hush 1 hush ! ” she said, sick with a terrible dread, yet 
with a will strongly resisting her conviction. “ Who are 
you ? ” But she knew — knew quite well. 

Benjamin.” An oath. “ Let me out, I say, and I’ll be 
247 


The Crooked Branch 

off, and out of England by to-morrow night, never to come 
back, and you’ll have all my father’s money.” 

“ D’ye think I care for that ? ” said Bessy vehemently, 
feeling with trembling hands for the lock ; “I wish there 
was noan such a thing as money i’ the world, afore yo’d 
come to this. There, yo’re free, and I charge yo’ never to 
let me see your face again. I’d ne’er ha’ let yo’ loose but 
for fear o’ breaking their hearts, if yo’ hanna killed him 
already.” But, before she had ended her speech, he was 
gone — off into the black darkness, leaving the door open 
wide. With a new terror in her mind, Bessy shut it afresh 
— shut it and bolted it this time. Then she sat down on 
the first chair, and relieved her soul by giving a great and 
exceeding bitter cry. But she knew it was no time for 
giving way ; and, lifting herself up with as much effort as if 
each of her limbs was a heavy weight, she went into the 
back kitchen, and took a drink of cold water. To her 
surprise, she heard her uncle’s voice saying feebly — 

“ Carry me up, and lay me by her.” 

But Bessy could not carry him; she could only help 
his faint exertions to walk upstairs ; and, by the time he was 
there, sitting panting on the first chair she could find, John 
Kirkby and Atkinson returned. John came up now to her 
aid. Her aunt lay across the bed in a fainting-fit, and her 
uncle sat in so utterly broken-down a state that Bessy 
feared immediate death for both. But John cheered her up, 
and lifted the old man into his bed again ; and, while Bessy 
tried to compose poor Hester’s limbs into a position of rest, 
J ohn went down to hunt about for the little store of gin which 
was always kept in a corner cupboard against emergencies. 

“ They’ve had a sore fright,” said he, shaking his head, 
as he poured a little gin and hot water into their mouths 
with a tea-spoon, while Bessy chafed their cold feet ; “ and 
it and the cold have been welly too much for ’em, poor 
old folk!” 

He looked tenderly at them, and Bessy blessed him in 
her heart for that look. 


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The Crooked Branch 

“ I maun be off. I sent Atkinson up to th’ farm for to 
bring down Bob, and J ack came wi’ him back to th’ shippon, 
for to look after t’other man. He began blackguarding us 
all round, so Bob and Jack were gagging him wi’ bridles 
when I left.” 

“ Ne’er give heed to what he says,” cried poor Bessy, a 
new panic besetting her. “ Folks o’ his sort are allays for 
dragging other folk into their mischief. I’m right glad he 
were well gagged.” 

“ Well ! hut what I were saying were this : Atkinson and 
me will take t’other chap, who seems quiet enough, to th’ 
shippon, and it’ll be one piece o’ work for to mind them and 
the cow; and I’ll saddle t’ old bay mare and ride for constables 
and doctor fra’ Highminster. I’ll bring Dr. Preston up to 
see Nathan and Hester first ; and then, I reckon, th’ broken- 
legged chap down below must have his turn, for all as he’s 
met wi’ his misfortunes in a wrong line o’ life.” 

“ Ay ! ” said Bessy. “We maun ha’ the doctor sure 
enough, for look at them how they lie — like two stone 
statues on a church monument, so sad and solemn ! ” 

“ There’s a look o’ sense come back into their faces 
though, sin’ they supped that gin-and-water. I’d keep on 
a-hathing his head and giving them a sup on’t fra’ time to 
time, if I was you, Bessy.” 

Bessy followed him downstairs, and lighted the men out 
of the house. She dared not light them carrying their 
burden even, until they passed round the corner of the 
house ; so strong was her fearful conviction that Benjamin 
was lurking near, seeking again to enter. She rushed back 
into the kitchen, holted and barred the door, and pushed the 
end of the dresser against it, shutting her eyes as she passed 
the uncurtained window, for fear of catching a glimpse of a 
white face pressed against the glass, and gazing at her. 
The poor old couple lay quiet and speechless, although 
Hester’s position had slightly altered : she had turned a little 
on her side towards her husband, and had laid one shrivelled 
arm around his neck. But he was just as Bessy had 

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The Crooked Branch 

left him, with the wet cloths around his head, his eyes 
not wanting in a certain intelligence, but solemn, and 
unconscious to all that was passing around as the eyes of 
death. 

His wife spoke a little from time to time — said a word of 
thanks, perhaps, or so ; but he, never. All the rest of that 
terrible night, Bessy tended the poor old couple with constant 
care, her own heart so stunned and bruised in its feelings 
that she went about her pious duties almost hke one in a 
dream. The November morning was long in coming; nor 
did she perceive any change, either for the worse or the 
better, before the doctor came, about eight o’clock. John 
Kirkby brought him ; and was full of the capture of the two 
burglars. 

As far as Bessy could make out, the participation of that 
unnatural Third was unknown. It was a relief, almost 
sickening in the revulsion it gave her from her terrible fear, 
which now she felt had haunted and held possession of her 
all night long, and had, in fact, paralysed her from thinking. 
Now she felt and thought with acute and feverish vividness, 
owing, no doubt, in part, to the sleepless night she had 
passed. She felt almost sure that her uncle (possibly her 
aunt, too) had recognised Benjamin ; but there was a faint 
chance that they had not done so, and wild horses should 
never tear the secret from her, nor should any inadvertent 
word betray the fact that there had been a third person 
concerned. As to Nathan, he had never uttered a word. It 
was her aunt’s silence that made Bessy fear lest Hester 
knew, somehow, that her son was concerned. 

The doctor examined them both closely ; looked hard at 
the wound on Nathan’s head ; asked questions which Hester 
answered shortly and unwillingly, and Nathan not at all — 
shutting his eyes, as if even the sight of a stranger was pain 
to him. Bessy replied, in their stead, to all that she could 
answer respecting their state, and followed the doctor down- 
stairs with a beating heart. When they came into the house- 
place, they found John had opened the outer door to let in 

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some fresh air, had brushed the hearth and made up the fire, 
and put the chairs and table in their right places. He 
reddened a little, as Bessy’s eye fell upon his swollen and 
battered face, but tried to smile it off in a dry kind of 
way— 

“ Yo’ see, I’m an ould bachelor, and I just thought as I’d 
redd up things a bit. How dun yo’ find ’em, doctor ? ” 

“ Well, the poor old couple have had a terrible shock. I 
shall send them some soothing medicine to bring down the 
pulse, and a lotion for the old man’s head. It is very well 
it bled so much ; there might have been a good deal of 
inflammation.” And so he went on, giving directions to Bessy 
for keeping them quietly in bed through the day. From 
these directions she gathered that they were not, as she had 
feared all night long, near to death. The doctor expected 
them to recover, though they would require care. She 
almost wished it had been otherwise, and that they, and she 
too, might have just lain down to their rest in the churchyard 
— so cruel did life seem to her ; so dreadful the recollection of 
that subdued voice of the hidden robber smiting her with 
recognition. 

All this time, John was getting things ready for breakfast, 
with something of the handiness of a woman. Bessy half- 
resented his officiousness in pressing Dr. Preston to have a 
cup of tea, she did so want him to be gone and leave her 
alone with her thoughts. She did not know that all was 
done for love of her; that the hard-featured, short-spoken 
John was thinking all the time how ill and miserable she 
looked, and trying with tender artifices to make it incumbent 
upon her sense of hospitality to share Dr. Preston’s meal. 

“ I’ve seen as the cows is milked,” said he, “ yourn and 
all ; and Atkinson’s brought ours round fine. Whatten a 
marcy it were as she were sick this very night ! Yon two 
chaps ’ud ha’ made short work on’t, if yo’ hadna fetched us 
in ; and, as it were, we had a sore tussle. One on ’em ’ll bear 
the marks on’t to his dying day, wunnot he, doctor ? ” 

“ He’ll barely have his leg well enough to stand his trial 

251 


The Crooked Branch 

at York Assizes ; they’re coming off in a fortnight from 
now.” 

“Ay, and that reminds me, Bessy, yo’ll have to go 
witness before Justice Eoyds. Constables bade me tell yo’ 
and gie yo’ this summons. Dunnot be feared : it will not 
be a long job, though I’m not saying as it’U be a pleasant 
one. Yo’ll have to answer questions as to how, and aU about 
it ; and Jane ” (his sister) “ will come and stop wi’ th’ oud 
folks ; and I’ll drive yo’ in the shandry.” 

No one knew why Bessy’s colour blenched, and her eye 
clouded. No one knew how she apprehended lest she should 
have to say that Benjamin had been of the gang ; if, indeed, 
in some way, the law had not followed on his heels quick 
enough to catch him. 

But that trial was spared her ; she was warned by J ohn 
to answer questions, and say no more than was necessary, 
for fear of making her story less clear ; and, as she was 
known, by character at least, to Justice Eoyds and his clerk, 
they made the examination as little formidable as possible. 

When* all was over, and John was driving her back again, 
he expressed his rejoicing that there would be evidence 
enough to convict the men, without summoning Nathan and 
Hester to identify them. Bessy was so tired that she hardly 
understood what an escape it was; how far greater than 
even her companion understood. 

Jane Kirkby stayed with her for a week or more, and 
was an unspeakable comfort. Otherwise she sometimes 
thought she should have gone mad, with the face of her 
uncle always reminding her, in its stony expression of 
agony, of that fearful night. Her aunt was softer in her 
sorrow, as became one of her faithful and pious nature ; but 
it was easy to see how her heart bled inwardly. She re- 
covered her strength sooner than her husband ; but, as she 
recovered, the doctor perceived the rapid approach of total 
blindness. Every day, nay, every hour of the day, that 
Bessy dared, without fear of exciting their suspicions of her 
knowledge, she told them, as she had anxiously told them at 

252 


The Crooked Branch 

first, that only two men, and those perfect strangers, had 
been discovered as being concerned in the burglary. Her 
uncle would never have asked a question about it, even if 
she had withheld all information respecting the affair ; but 
she noticed the quick, watching, waiting glance of his eye, 
whenever she returned from any person or place where she 
might have been supposed to gain intelligence if Benjamin 
were suspected or caught : and she hastened to relieve the 
old man’s anxiety, by always telling all that she had heard ; 
thankful that, as the days passed on, the danger she sick- 
ened to think of grew less and less. 

Day by day, Bessie had ground for thinking that her 
aunt knew more than she had apprehended at first. There 
was something so very humble and touching in Hester’s 
blind way of feeling about for her husband— stem, woe- 
begone Nathan — and mutely striving to console him in the 
deep agony of which Bessy learnt, from this loving, piteous 
manner, that her aunt was conscious. Her aunt’s face 
looked blankly up into his, tears slowly running down from 
her sightless eyes ; while from time to time, when she thought 
herself unheard by any save him, she would repeat such 
texts as she had heard at church in happier days, and which 
she thought, in her true, simple piety, might tend to console 
him. Yet, day by day, her aunt grew more and more sad. 

Three or four days before assize-time, two summonses to 
attend the trial at York were sent to the old people. Neither 
Bessy, nor John, nor Jane, could understand this : for their 
own notices had come long before, and they had been told 
that their evidence would be enough to convict. 

But, alas ! the fact was, that the lawyer employed to 
defend the prisoners had heard from them that there was a 
third person engaged, and had heard who that third person 
was ; and it was this advocate’s business to diminish, if 
possible, the guilt of his clients, by proving that they were 
but tools in the hands of one who had, from his superior 
knowledge of the premises and the daily customs of the 
inhabitants, been the originator and planner of the whole 

2^3 


The Crooked Branch 

affair. To do this, it was necessary to have the evidence of 
the parents, who, as the prisoners had said, must have 
recognised the voice of the young man, their son. For no 
one knew that Bessy, too, could have borne witness to his 
having been present ; and, as it was supposed that Benjamin 
had escaped out of England, there was no exact betrayal of 
him on the part of his accomplices. 

Wondering, bewildered, and weary, the old couple 
reached York, in company with John and Bessy, on the eve 
of the day of trial. Nathan was still so self-contained that 
Bessy could never guess what had been passing in his mind. 
He was almost passive under his old wife’s trembling 
caresses ; he seemed hardly conscious of them, so rigid was 
his demeanour. 

She, Bessy feared at times, was becoming childish ; for 
she had evidently so great and anxious a love for her 
husband, that her memory seemed going in her endeavours 
to melt the stoniness of his aspect and manners ; she 
appeared occasionally to have forgotten why he was so 
changed, in her piteous little attempts to bring him back to 
his former self. 

“ They’ll, for sure, never torture them, when they see 
what old folks they are ! ” cried Bessy, on the morning of 
the trial, a dim fear looming over her mind. “ They’ll never 
be so cruel, for sure ? ” 

But “ for sure ” it was so. The barrister looked up at 
the judge, almost apologetically, as he saw how hoary- 
headed and woeful an old man was put into the witness-box, 
when the defence came on, and Nathan Huntroyd was called 
on for his evidence. 

“ It is necessary, on behalf of my clients, my lord, that 
I should pursue a course which, for all other reasons, I 
deplore.” 

“Go on ! ” said the judge. “ What is right and legal 
must be done.” But, an old man himself, he covered his 
quivering mouth with his hand as Nathan, with grey, un- 
moved face, and solemn, hollow eyes, placing his two hands 

5^54 


The Crooked Branch 

on each side of the witness-hox, prepared to give his answers 
to questions, the nature of which he was beginning to fore- 
see, hut would not shrink from replying to truthfully ; “ the 
very stones ” (as he said to himself, with a kind of dulled 
sense of the Eternal Justice) “ rise up against such a sinner.” 

“ Your name is Nathan Huntroyd, I heheve ? ” 

“ It is.” 

“ You hve at Nab-End Farm ? ” 

“ I do.” 

“ Do you remember the night of November the twelfth ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You were awakened that night by some noise, I heheve. 
What was it ? ” 

The old man’s eyes fixed themselves upon his questioner 
with the look of a creature brought to bay. That look the 
barrister never forgets. It will haunt him till his dying day. 

“ It was a throwing-up of stones against our window.” 

“ Did you hear it at first ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ What awakened you, then ? ” 

“ She did.” 

“ And then you both heard the stones. Did you hear 
nothing else ? ” 

A long pause. Then a low, clear “ Yes.” 

“ What?” 

“ Our Benjamin asking us for to let him in. She said as 
it were him, leastways.” 

“ And you thought it was him, did you not ? ” 

“ I told her ” (this time in a louder voice) “ for to get to 
sleep, and not be thinking that every drunken chap as passed 
by were our Benjamin, for that he were dead and gone.” 

“ And she ? ” 

“ She said as though she’d heerd our Benjamin, afore she 
were welly awake, axing for to be let in. But I bade her 
ne’er heed her dreams, but turn on her other side and get to 
sleep again.” 

“ And did she ? ” 


255 


The Crooked Branch 

A long pause — judge, jury, bar, audience, all held their 
breath. At length Nathan said — 

“ No ! ” 

“ What did you do then ? (My lord, I am compelled to 
ask these painful questions.) ” 

“ I saw she wadna be quiet : she had allays thought he 
would come back to us, like the Prodigal i’ th’ Gospels.” 
(His voice choked a little ; but he tried to make it steady, 
succeeded, and went on.) “ She said, if I wadna get up, she 
would ; and just then I heerd a voice. I’m not quite mysel, 
gentlemen — I’ve been ill and i’ bed, an’ it makes me 
trembling-like. Some one said, ‘ Father, mother, I’m here, 
starving i’ the cold — wunnot yo’ get up and let me in ? ’” 

“ And that voice was ? ” 

“ It were like our Benjamin’s. I see whatten yo’re 
driving at, sir, and I’ll tell yo’ truth, though it kills me to 
speak it. I dunnot say it were our Benjamin as spoke, 
mind yo’ — I only say it were like ” 

“ That’s all I want, my good fellow. And on the strength 
of that entreaty, spoken in your son’s voice, you went down 
and opened the door to these two prisoners at the bar, and 
to a third man ? ” 

Nathan nodded assent, and even that counsel was too 
merciful to force him to put more into words. 

“ Call Hester Huntroyd.” 

An old woman, with a face of which the eyes were 
evidently blind, with a sweet, gentle, careworn face, came 
into the witness-box, and meekly curtseyed to the presence 
of those whom she had been taught to respect — a presence 
she could not see. 

There was something in her humble, blind aspect, as she 
stood waiting to have something done to her — what her poor 
troubled mind hardly knew — that touched all who saw her, 
inexpressibly. Again the counsel apologised, but the judge 
could not reply in words ; his face was quivering all over, 
and the jury looked uneasily at the prisoner’s counsel. That 
gentleman saw that he might go too far, and send their 

256 


The Crooked Branch 

sympathies off on the other side ; but one or two questions 
he must ask. So, hastily recapitulating much that he had 
learned from Nathan, he said, “ You believed it was your 
son’s voice asking to be let in ? ” 

“Ay ! Our Benjamin came home, I’m sure ; choose 
where he is gone.’’ 

She turned her head about, as if listening for the voice of 
her child, in the hushed silence of the court. 

“ Yes ; he came home that night — and your husband 
went down to let him in ? ’’ 

“ Well ! I believe he did. There was a great noise of 
folk downstair.” 

“ And you heard your son Benjamin’s voice among the 
others ? ” 

“Is it to do him harm, sir?” asked she, her face 
growing more intelligent and intent on the business in 
hand. 

“ That is not my object in questioning you. I beUeve he 
has left England ; so nothing you can say will do him any 
harm. You heard your son’s voice, I say ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. For sure I did.” 

“ And some men came upstairs into your room ? What 
did they say ? ” 

“ They axed where Nathan kept his stocking.” 

“ And you— did you tell them ? ” 

“ No, sir, for I knew Nathan would not like me to.” 

“ What did you do then ? ” 

A shade of reluctance came over her face, as if she began 
to perceive causes and consequences. 

“ I just screamed on Bessy — that’s my niece, sir.” 

“ And you heard some one shout out from the bottom of 
the stairs ? ” 

She looked piteously at him, but did not answer. 

“ Gentlemen of the jury, I wish to call your particular 
attention to this fact : she acknowledges she heard some one 
shout — some third person, you observe — shout out to the 
two above. What did he say ? That is the last question I 

357 s 


The Crooked Branch 

shall trouble you with. What did the third person, left 
behind, downstairs, say ? " 

Her face worked — her mouth opened two or three times 
as if to speak — she stretched out her arms imploringly ; but 
no word came, and she fell back into the arms of those 
nearest to her. Nathan forced himself forward into the 
witness-box — 

“ My Lord Judge, a woman bore ye, as I reckon ; it’s a 
cruel shame to serve a mother so. It wur my son, my only 
child, as called out for us t’ open door, and who shouted out 
for to hold th’ oud woman’s throat if she did na stop her 
noise, when hoo’d fain ha’ cried for her niece to help. And 
now yo’ve truth, and a’ th’ truth, and I’ll leave yo’ to th’ 
judgment o’ God for th’ way yo’ve getten at it.” 

Before night the mother was stricken with paralysis, and 
lay on her death-bed. But the broken-hearted go Home, to 
be comforted of God. 


258 


CURIOUS IF TRUE 


(Extract from a Letter from Richard 
Whittingham, Esq.) 


You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my 
descent from that sister of Calvin’s who married a Whitting- 
ham, Dean of Durham, that I doubt if you will be able to 
enter into the regard for my distinguished relation that has 
led me to France, in order to examine registers and archives, 
which I thought might enable me to discover collateral de- 
scendants of the great Ee former, with whom I might call 
cousins. I shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures 
in this research ; you are not worthy to hear of them ; but 
something so curious befell me one evening last August, that 
if I had not been perfectly certain I was wide awake, I might 
have taken it for a dream. 

For the purpose I have named, it was necessary that I 
should make Tours my headquarters for a time. I had traced 
descendants of the Calvin family out of Normandy into the 
centre of France ; but I found it was necessary to have a 
kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese, before I 
could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the 
possession of the Church; and, as I had several English 
friends at Tours, I awaited an answer to my request from 

Monseigneur de , at that town. I was ready to accept 

any invitation ; but I received very few, and was sometimes 
a little at a loss what to do with my evenings. The taUe- 
d'hote was at five o’clock ; I did not wish to go to the expense 
of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of 

259 


Curious if True 

the salle a manger, could not play either at pool or billiards, 
and the aspect of my fellow-guests was unprepossessing 
enough to make me unwilling to enter into any tete-a-tete 
gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, 
and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the 
August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the sur- 
rounding country ; the middle of the day was too hot for this 
purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the 
Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing 
with equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who 
passed by. 

One Thursday evening — the 18th of August it was, I 
think — I had gone further than usual in my walk, and 1 
found that it was later than I had imagined when I paused 
to turn back. I fancied I could make a round ; I had enough 
notion of the direction in which I was to see that, by turning 
up a narrow straight lane to my left, I should shorten my 
way back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, 
could I have found an outlet at the right place ; but field- 
paths are almost unknown in that part of France, and my 
lane, stiff and straight as any street, and marked into terribly 
vanishing perspective by the regular row of poplars on each 
side, seemed interminable. Of course night came on, and I 
was in darkness. In England I might have had a chance of 
seeing a light in some cottage only a field or two off, and 
asking my way from the inhabitants ; but here I could see 
no such welcome sight; indeed, I believe French peasants 
go to bed with the summer daylight ; so, if there were any 
habitations in the neighbourhood, I never saw them. At last 
— I believe I must have walked two hours in the darkness — 
I saw the dusky outline of a wood on one side of the weariful 
lane ; and, impatiently careless of all forest laws and penalties 
for trespassers, I made my way to it, thinking that, if the 
worst came to the worst, I could find some covert — some 
shelter where I could lie down and rest, until the morning 
light gave me a chance of finding my way back to Tours. 
But the plantation, on the outskirts of what appeared to me 

260 


Curious if True 

a dense wood, was of young trees, too closely-planted to be 
more than slender stems growing up to a good height, with 
scanty foliage on their summits. On I went towards the 
thicker forest; and, once there, I slackened my pace, and 
began to look about me for a good lair. I was as dainty as 
Lochiel’s grandchild, who made his grandsire indignant at 
the luxury of his pillow of snow : this brake was too full of 
brambles, that felt damp with dew ; there was no hurry, 
since 1 had given up all hope of passing the night between 
four walls ; and I went leisurely groping about, and trusting 
that there were no wolves to be poked up out of their summer 
drowsiness by my stick — when, all at once, I saw a chateau 
before me, not a quarter of a mile off, at the end of what 
seemed to be an ancient avenue (now overgrown and irregu- 
lar), which I happened to be crossing, when I looked to my 
right and saw the welcome sight. Large, stately, and dark 
was its outline against the dusky night-sky ; there were 
pepper-boxes, and tourelles, and what not, fantastically growing 
up into the dim starlight. And, more to the purpose still, 
though I could not see the details of the building that I was 
now facing, it was plain enough that there were lights in 
many windows, as if some great entertainment was going on. 

“ They are hospitable people, at any rate,” thought I. 
“ Perhaps they will give me a bed. I don’t suppose. French 
proprietaires have traps and horses quite as plentiful as 
English country- gentlemen ; but they are evidently having 
a large party, and some of their guests may be from Tours, 
and will give me a cast back to the ‘ Lion d’Or.’ I am 
not proud, and I am dog-tired. I am not above hanging on 
behind, if need be.” 

So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I 
went up to the door, which was standing open, most hos- 
pitably, and showing a large lighted hall, all hung round with 
spoils of the chase, armour, &c., the details of which I had 
not time to notice ; for the instant I stood on the threshold 
a huge porter appeared, in a strange, old-fashioned dress — a 
kind of livery which well befitted the general appearance of 

261 


Curious if True 

the house. He asked me, in French (so curiously pronounced 
that I thought I had hit upon a new kind of patois)^ my name, 
and whence I came. I thought he would not be much the 
wiser — still, it was but civil to give it before I made my 
request for assistance ; so, in reply, I said — 

“ My name is Whittingham — Eichard Whittingham, an 
English gentleman, staying at .” To my infinite sur- 

prise, a light of pleased intelligence came over the giant’s 
face; he made me a low bow, and said (still in the same 
curious dialect) that I was welcome, that I was long expected. 

“ Long expected ! ” What could the fellow mean ? Had 
I stumbled on a nest of relations by John Calvin’s side, who 
had heard of my genealogical inquiries, and were gratified 
and interested by them ? But I was too much pleased to be 
under shelter for the night to think it necessary to account 
for my agreeable reception before I enjoyed it. Just as he 
was opening the great heavy hattants of the door that led from 
the hall to the interior, he turned round and said — 

“ Apparently Monsieur le Geanquilleur is not come with 
you ? ” 

“ No ! I am all alone. I have lost my way ” — and I 
was going on with my explanation, when he, as if quite 
indifferent to it, led the way up a great stone staircase, as 
wide as many rooms, and having on each landing-place 
massive iron wickets in a heavy framework ; these the porter 
unlocked with the solemn slowness of age. Indeed, a 
strange, mysterious awe of the centuries that had passed 
away since this chateau was built, came over me, as I waited 
for the turning of the ponderous keys in the ancient locks. 
I could almost have fancied that I heard a mighty rushing 
murmur (like the ceaseless sound of a distant sea, ebbing 
and flowing for ever and for ever), coming forth from the 
great vacant galleries that opened out on each side of the 
broad staircase, and were to be dimly perceived in the dark- 
ness above us. It was as if the voices of generations of 
men yet echoed and eddied in the silent air. It was strange, 
too, that my friend the porter going before me, ponderously 

262 


Curious if True 

infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep the 
tall flambeau he held steadily before him — strange, I say, 
that he was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and 
passages, or met with on the grand staircase. At length, we 
stood before the gilded doors that led into the saloon where 
the family — or it might be the company, so great was the 
buzz of voices — was assembled. I would have remonstrated, 
when I found he was going to introduce me, dusty and 
travel-smeared, in a morning costume that was not even my 
best, into this grand salon, with nobody knew how many 
ladies and gentlemen assembled ; but the obstinate old man 
was evidently bent upon taking me straight to his master, 
and paid no heed to my words. 

The doors flew open ; and I was ushered into a saloon 
curiously full of pale light, which did not culminate on any 
spot, nor proceed from any centre, nor flicker with any 
motion of the air, but filled every nook and corner, making 
all things deliciously distinct ; different from our light of gas 
or candle, as is the difference between a clear southern 
atmosphere and that of our misty England. 

At the first moment, my arrival excited no attention, the 
apartment was so full of people, all intent on their own 
conversation. But my friend the porter went up to a hand- 
some lady of middle age, richly attired in that antique 
manner which fashion has brought round again of late years, 
and, waiting first in an attitude of deep respect till her 
attention fell upon him, told her my name and something 
about me, as far as I could guess from the gestures of the 
one and the sudden glance of the eye of the other. 

She immediately came towards me with the most friendly 
actions of greeting, even before she had advanced near 
enough to speak. Then — and was it not strange? — her 
words and accent were those of the commonest peasant of 
the country. Yet she herself looked high-bred, and would 
have been dignified, had she been a shade less restless ; had 
her countenance worn a little less lively and inquisitive ex- 
pression. I had been poking a good deal about the old parts 

263 


Curious if True 

of Tours, and had had to understand the dialect of the people 
who dwelt in the Marche au Vendredi and similar places ; or 
I really should not have understood my handsome hostess 
as she offered to present me to her husband, a hen-pecked, 
gentlemanly man, who was more quaintly attired than she in 
the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself 
that in France, as in England, it is the provincials who 
carry fashion to such an excess as to become ridiculous. 

However, he spoke (still in the patois) of his pleasure in 
making my acquaintance, and led me to a strange uneasy 
easy-chair, much of a piece with the rest of the furniture, 
which might have taken its place without any anachronism 
by the side of that in the Hotel Cluny. Then again began 
the clatter of French voices, which my arrival had for an 
instant interrupted, and I had leisure to look about me. 
Opposite to me sat a very sweet- looking lady, who must 
have been a great beauty in her youth, I should think, and 
would be charming, in old age, from the sweetness of her 
countenance. She was, however, extremely fat, and, on 
seeing her feet laid up before her on a cushion, I at once 
perceived that they were so swollen as to render her in- 
capable of walking, which probably brought on her excessive 
embonpoint. Her hands were plump and small, but rather 
coarse-grained in texture, not quite so clean as they might 
have been, and altogether not so aristocratic-looking as the 
charming face. Her dress was of superb black velvet, 
ermine-trimmed, with diamonds thrown all abroad over it. 

Not far from her stood the least little man I had ever 
seen, of such admirable proportions no one could call him a 
dwarf, because with that word we usually associate some- 
thing of deformity ; but yet with an elfin look of shrewd, 
hard, worldly wisdom in his face that marred the impression 
which his delicate regular little features would otherwise 
have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of 
equal rank with the rest of the company, for his dress was 
inappropriate to the occasion (and he apparently was an 
invited, while I was an involuntary, guest ;) and one or two 

264 


Curious if True 

of his gestures and actions were more like the tricks of an 
uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain what I 
mean : his boots had evidently seen much service, and had 
been re- topped, re-heeled, re-soled to the extent of cobbler’s 
powers. Why should he have come in them if they were 
not his best — ^his only pair? And what can be more un- 
genteel than poverty ! Then, again, he had an uneasy trick 
of putting his hand up to his throat, as if he expected to find 
something the matter with it ; and he had the awkward 
habit — which I do not think he could have copied from Dr. 
Johnson, because most probably he had never heard of him 
— of trying always to retrace his steps on the exact boards 
on which he had trodden to arrive at any particular part of 
the room. Besides, to settle the question, I once heard him 
addressed as Monsieur Poucet, without any aristocratic “ de ” 
for a prefix ; and nearly every one else in the room was a 
marquis, at any rate. 

I say “ nearly every one,” for some strange people had 
the entree; unless, indeed, they were, like me, benighted. 
One of the guests I should have taken for a servant, but for 
the extraordinary influence he seemed to have over the man 
I took for his master, and who never did anything without, 
apparently, being urged thereto by this follower. The 
master, magnificently dressed, but ill at ease in his clothes, 
as if they had been made for some one else, was a weak- 
looking, handsome man, continually sauntering about, and, 
I almost guessed, an object of suspicion to some of the 
gentlemen present ; which, perhaps, drove him on the 
companionship of his follower, who was dressed something 
in the style of an ambassador’s chasseur ; yet it was not a 
chasseur’s dress after all ; it was something more thoroughly 
old-world; boots half-way up his ridiculously small legs, 
which clattered as he walked along, as if they were too large 
for his little feet ; and a great quantity of grey fur, as 
trimming to coat, court-mantle, boots, cap — everything. You 
know the way in which certain countenances remind you 
perpetually of some animal, be it bird or beast ! Well, this 


Curious if True 

chasseur (as I will call him, for want of a better name) was 
exceedingly hke the great Tom-cat that you have seen so 
often in my chambers, and laughed at, almost as often, for his 
uncanny gravity of demeanour. Grey whiskers has my Tom 
— grey whiskers had the chasseur; grey hair overshadows 
the upper lip of my Tom — grey mustachios hid that of the 
chasseur. The pupils of Tom’s eyes dilate and contract as 
I had thought cats’ pupils only could do, until I saw those 
of the chasseur. To be sure, canny as Tom is, the chasseur 
bad the advantage in the more intelligent expression. He 
seemed to have obtained most complete sway over his master 
or patron, whose looks he watched, and whose steps he followed, 
with a kind of distrustful interest that puzzled me greatly. 

There were several other groups in the more distant part 
of the saloon, all of the stately old school, all grand and 
noble, I conjectured from their bearing. They seemed 
perfectly well acquainted with each other, as if they were 
in the habit of meeting. But I was interrupted in my 
observations by the tiny httle gentleman on the opposite 
side of the room coming across to take a place beside me. 
It is no difficult matter to a Frenchman to shde into con- 
versation; and so gracefully did my pigmy friend keep up 
the character of the nation, that we were almost confidential 
before ten minutes had elapsed. 

Now I was quite aware that the welcome which all had 
extended to me, from the porter up to the vivacious lady 
and meek lord of the castle, was intended for some other 
person. But it required either a degree of moral courage, 
of which I cannot boast, or the self-reliance and conversa- 
tional powers of a bolder and cleverer man than I, to un- 
deceive people who had fallen into so fortunate a mistake 
for me. Yet the little man by my side insinuated himself 
so much into my confidence that I had half a mind to tell 
him of my exact situation, and to turn him into a friend and 
an ally. 

“ Madame is perceptibly growing older,” said he in the 
midst of my perplexity, glancing at our hostess. 

266 


Curious if True 

“ Madame is still a very fine woman,” replied I. 

“ Now, is it not strange,” continued he, lowering his voice, 
“ how women almost invariably praise the absent, or departed, 
as if they were angels of light ? while, as for the present, or 
the living” — here he shrugged up his little shoulders and 
made an expressive pause. “ Would you believe it ! Madame 
is always praising her late husband to monsieur’s face ; till, 
in fact, we guests are quite perplexed how to look : for, you 
know, the late M. de Eetz’s character was quite notorious — 
everybody has heard of him.” All the world of Touraine, 
thought I ; but I made an assenting noise. 

At this instant, monsieur our host came up to me, and, 
with a civil look of tender interest (such as some people put 
on when they inquire after your mother, about whom they 
do not care one straw), asked if I had heard lately how my 
cat was ? “ How my cat was ! ” What could the man mean ? 
My cat ! Could he mean the tail-less Tom, bom in the Isle 
of Man, and now supposed to be keeping guard against the 
incursions of rats and mice into my chambers in London ? 
Tom is, as you know, on pretty good terms with some of my 
friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts without scruple, 
and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of demeanour, 
and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame 
have reached across the Channel? However, an answer 
must be returned to the inquiry, as monsieur’s face was bent 
down to mine with a look of polite anxiety ; so I, in my turn, 
assumed an expression of gratitude, and assured him that, 
to the best of my belief, my cat was in remarkably good 
health. 

“ And the climate agrees with her ? ” 

“Perfectly,” said I, in a maze of wonder at this deep 
solicitude in a tail-less cat, who had lost one foot and half an 
ear in some cmel trap. My host smiled a sweet smile, and, 
addressing a few words to my little neighbour, passed on. 

“ How wearisome those aristocrats are I ” quoth my 
neighbour, with a slight sneer. “ Monsieur’s conversation 
rarely extends to more than two sentences to any one. By 

267 


Curious if True 

that time his faculties are exhausted, and he needs the re- 
freshment of silence. You and I, monsieur, are, at any rate, 
indebted to our own wits for our rise in the world ! ” 

Here again I was bewildered ! As you know, I am rather 
proud of my descent from families which, if not noble them- 
selves, are allied to nobility ; and as to my “ rise in the world ” 
— if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like 
quahties than for mother-wit, being unincumbered with 
heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, 
it was my cue to agree : so I smiled again. 

“ For my part,” said he, “if a man does not stick at 
trifles ; if he knows how to judiciously add to, or withhold 
facts, and is not . sentimental in his parade of humanity, he 
is sure to do well ; sure to affix a de or von to his name, and 
end his days in comfort. There is an example of what I 
am saying ” — and he glanced furtively at the weak- looking 
master of the sharp, intelligent servant, whom I have called 
the chasseur. 

. “ Monsieur le Marquis would never have been anything 
but a miller’s son, if it had not been for the talents of his 
servant. Of course you know his antecedents ? ” 

I was going to make some remarks on the changes in 
the order of the peerage since the days of Louis XYI, — 
going, in fact, to be very sensible and historical — when there 
was a slight commotion among the people at the other end 
of the room. Lacqueys in quaint liveries must have come 
in from behind the tapestry, I suppose (for I never saw them 
enter, though I sate right opposite to the doors), and were 
handing about the slight beverages with slighter viands 
which are considered sufficient refreshments, but which 
looked rather meagre to my hungry appetite. These foot- 
men were standing solemnly opposite to a lady — beautiful, 
splendid as the dawn, but — sound asleep in a magnificent 
settee. A gentleman, who showed so much irritation at her 
ill-timed slumbers, that I think he must have been her 
husband, was trying to awaken her with actions not far 
removed from shakings. All in vain ; she was quite 

268 


Curious if True 

unconscious of his annoyance, or the smiles of the com- 
pany, or the automatic solemnity of the waiting footman, 
or the perplexed anxiety of monsieur and madame. 

My little friend sat down with a sneer, as if his curiosity 
was quenched in contempt. 

“ Moralists would make an infinity of wise remarks on 
that scene,” said he. “ In the first place, note the ridiculous 
position into which their superstitious reverence for rank and 
title puts all these people. Because monsieur is a reigning 
prince over some minute principality, the exact situation of 
which no one has as yet discovered, no one must venture 
to take their glass of eau sucre till Madame la Princesse 
awakens; and, judging from past experience, those poor 
lacqueys may have to stand for a century before that happens. 
Next — always speaking as a moralist, you will observe — 
note how difficult it is to break off bad habits acquired in 
youth ! ” 

Just then the prince succeeded, by what means I did not 
see, in awaking the beautiful sleeper. But, at first, she did 
not remember where she was ; and, looking up at her husband 
with loving eyes, she smiled, and said — 

“ Is it you, my prince ? ” 

But he was too conscious of the suppressed amusement 
of the spectators, and his own consequent annoyance, to be 
reciprocally tender, and turned away with some little French 
expression, best rendered into English by “ Pooh, pooh, my 
dear I ” 

After I had had a glass of delicious wine of some unknown 
quality, my courage was in rather better plight than before, 
and I told my cynical little neighbour — whom I must say 
I was beginning to dislike — that I had lost my way in the 
wood, and had arrived at the chateau quite by mistake. 

He seemed mightily amused at my story ; said that the 
same thing had happened to himself more than once ; and 
told me that I had better luck than he had on one of these 
occasions, when, from his account, he must have been in 
considerable danger of his life. He ended his Story by 

269 


Curious if True 

making me admire his boots, which he said he still wore, 
patched though they were, and all their excellent quality 
lost by patching, because they were of such a first-rate make 
for long pedestrian excursions. “ Though, indeed,” he wound 
up by saying, “ the new fashion of railroads would seem to 
supersede the necessity for this description of boots.” 

When I consulted him as to whether I ought to make 
myself known to my host and hostess as a benighted traveller, 
instead of the guest whom they had taken me for, he ex- 
claimed, “ By no means ! I hate such squeamish morality.’’ 
And he seemed much offended by my innocent question, as 
if it seemed by implication to condemn something in himself. 
He was offended and silent ; and just at this moment I 
caught the sweet, attractive eyes of the lady opposite — that 
lady whom I named at first as being no longer in the bloom 
of youth, but as being somewhat infirm about the feet, which 
were supported on a raised cushion before her. Her looks 
seemed to say, “ Come here, and let us have some conver- 
sation together ; ” and, with a bow of silent excuse to my 
little companion, I went across to the lame old lady. She 
acknowledged my coming with the prettiest gesture of thanks 
possible ; and, half -apologetically, said — “ It is a little dull 
to be unable to move about on such evenings as this ; but 
it is a just punishment to me for my early vanities. My 
poor feet, that were by nature so small, are now taking their 
revenge for my cruelty in forcing them into such little 
slippers. . . . Besides, monsieur,” with a pleasant smile, “ I 
thought it was possible you might be weary of the malicious 
sayings of your little neighbour. He has not borne the best 
character in his youth, and such men are sure to be cynical 
in their old age.” 

“ Who is he ? ” asked I, with English abruptness. 

“ His name is Poucet, and his father was, I believe, a 
wood-cutter, or charcoal-burner, or something of the sort. 
They do tell sad stories of connivance at murder, ingratitude, 
and obtaining money on false pretences — but you will think 
me as bad as he if I go on with my slanders. Bather let 

270 


Curious if True 

US admire the loyely lady coming up towards us, with the 
roses in her hand — I never see her without roses, they are 
so closely connected with her past history, as you are doubt- 
less aware. Ah, heauty ! ” said my companion to the lady 
drawing near to us, “ it is like you to come to me, now that 
I can no longer go to you.” Then, turning to me, and 
gracefully drawing me into the conversation, she said, “ You 
must know that, although we never met until we were both 
married, we have been almost hke sisters ever since. There 
have been so many points of resemblance in our circum- 
stances, and I think I may say in our characters. We had 
each two elder sisters — mine were but half-sisters, though — 
who were not so kind to us as they might have been.” 

“ But have been sorry for it since,” put in the other lady. 

“ Since we have married princes,” ' continued the same 
lady, with an arch smile that had nothing of unkindness in 
it, “ — for we both have married far above our original stations 
in hfe — we are both unpunctual in our habits ; and, in con- 
sequence of this failing of ours, we have both had to suffer 
mortification and pain.” 

“ And both are charming,” said a whisper close behind 
me, “ My lord the marquis, say it — say, ‘ And both are 
charming.’ ” 

“ And both are charming,” was spoken aloud by another 
voice. I turned, and saw the wily, cat-like chasseur prompting 
his master to make civil speeches. 

The ladies bowed, with that kind of haughty acknow- 
ledgment which shows that compliments from such a source 
are distasteful. But our trio of conversation was broken up, 
and I was sorry for it. The marquis looked as if he had 
been stirred up to make that one speech, and hoped that he 
would not be expected to say more ; while behind him stood 
the chasseur, half-impertinent and half-servile in his ways 
and attitudes. The ladies, who were real ladies, seemed to 
be sorry for the awkwardness of the marquis, and addressed 
some trifling questions to him, adapting themselves to the 
subjects on which he could have no trouble in answering. 

271 


Curious if True 

The chasseur, meanwhile, was talking to himself in a 
growling tone of voice. I had fallen a little into the back- 
ground at this interruption in a conversation which promised 
to be so pleasant, and I could not help hearing his words. 

“Keally, De Carabas grows more stupid every day. I 
have a great mind to throw off his boots, and leave him to 
his fate. I was intended for a court, and to a court I will 
go, and make my own fortune as I have made his. The 
emperor will appreciate my talents.” 

And such are the habits of the French, or such his forget- 
fulness of good manners in his anger, that he spat right and 
left on the parquetted -floor. 

Just then a very - ligly, very pleasant-looking man, came 
towards the two ladies to whom I had lately been speaking, 
leading up to them aiiSelicate, fair woman, dressed all in the 
softest white, as if she were vouh au blanc. I do not think 
there was a bit of colour about her. I thought I had heard 
her making, as she came along, a little noise of pleasure, not 
exactly like the singing of a tea-kettle, nor yet like the cooing 
of a dove, but reminding me of each sound. 

“ Madame de Mioumiou was anxious to see you,” said 
he, addressing the lady with the roses, “ so I have brought I 
her across to give you a pleasure ! ” What an honest, good. I 
face ! but oh ! how ugly ! And yet I liked his ugliness better i 
than most persons’ beauty. There was a look of pathetic 3 
acknowledgment of his ugliness, and a deprecation of your J 
too hasty judgment, in his countenance, that was positively 
winning. The soft, white lady kept glancing at my neigh- 
bour the chasseur, as if they had had some former acquaint- 
ance ; which puzzled me very much, as they were of such 
different rank. However, their nerves were evidently strung 
to the same tune ; for at a sound behind the tapestry, which i 
was more like the scuttering of rats and mice than anything r 
else, both Madame de Mioumiou and the chasseur started [ 
with the most eager look of anxiety on their countenances, 
and by their restless movements — madame’s panting, and the 
fiery dilation of his eyes — one might see that commonplace 

272 


Curious if True 

sounds affected them both in a manner very different to the 
rest of the company. The ugly husband of the lovely lady 
with the roses now addressed himself to me — 

“We are much disappointed,” he said, “ in finding that 
Monsieur is not accompanied by his countryman — le grand 
Jean d’Angleterre ; I cannot pronounce his name rightly” — 
and he looked at me to help him out. 

“‘Le grand Jean d’Angleterre ! ’ ” now, who was ‘ le 
grand Jean d’Angleterre ’ ? John Bull ? John Bussell ? 
John Bright ? 

“Jean — Jean” — continued the gentleman, seeing my 
embarrassment. “ Ah, these terrible English names — ‘ Jean 
de Geanquilleur ! ’ ” 

I was as wise as ever. And yet the name struck 
me as familiar, but slightly disguised. I repeated it to 
myself. It was mighty like John the Giant-killer ; only his 
friends always call that worthy “ Jack.” I said the name 
aloud. 

“ Ah, that is it ! ” said he. “ But why has he not accom- 
panied you to our little reunion to-night ? ” 

I had been rather puzzled once or twice before, but this 
serious question added considerably to my perplexity. Jack 
the Giant-killer had once, it is true, been rather an intimate 
friend of mine, as far as (printer’s) ink and paper can keep 
up a friendship, but I had not heard his name mentioned for 
years ; and for aught I knew he lay enchanted with King 
Arthur’s knights, who lie entranced, until the blast of the 
trumpets of four mighty kings shall call them to help at 
England’s need. But the question had been asked in serious 
earnest by that gentleman, whom I more wished to think 
well of me than I did any other person in the room. So 
I answered respectfully, that it was long since I had heard 
anything of my countryman; but that I was sure it 
would have given him as much pleasure as it was doing 
myself to have been present at such an agreeable gathering 
of friends. He bowed, and then the lame lady took up the 
word. 


273 


T 


Curious if True 

“ To-night is the night, when, of all the year, this great 
old forest surrounding the castle is said to be haunted by the 
phantom of a little peasant- girl who once Hved hereabouts ; 
the tradition is that she was devoured by a wolf. In former 
days I have seen her on this night out of yonder window at 
the end of the gallery. Will you, ma belle, take monsieur 
to see the view outside by the moonlight (you may possibly 
see the phantom-child) ; and leave me to a Httle i^te-a-tUe 
with your husband ? ” 

With a gentle movement the lady with the roses com- 
plied with the other’s request, and we went to a great window, 
looking down on the forest, in which I had lost my way. 
The tops of the far- spreading and leafy trees lay motionless 
beneath us in that pale, wan hght, which shows objects 
almost as distinct in form, though not in colour, as by day. 
We looked down on the countless avenues which seemed 
to converge from all quarters to the great old castle; and 
suddenly across one, quite near to us, there passed the figure 
of a little girl with the “ capuchon ” on, that takes the place 
of a peasant girl’s bonnet in France. She had a basket on 
one arm, and by her, on the side to which her head was 
turned, there went a wolf. I could almost have said it was 
licking her hand, as if in penitent love,, if either penitence or 
love had ever been a quality of wolves ; but though not of 
living, perhaps it may be of phantom wolves. 

“ There, we have seen her ! ” exclaimed my beautiful 
companion. “ Though so long dead, her simple story of 
household goodness and trustful simplicity still lingers in 
the hearts of all who have ever heard of her ; and the country- 
people about here say that seeing the phantom-child on this 
anniversary brings good luck for the year. Let us hope that 
we shall share in the traditionary good fortune ! Ah ! here 
is Madame de Eetz — she retains the name of her first 
husband, you know, as he was of higher rank than the 
present.” We were joined by our hostess. 

“ If monsieur is fond of the beauties of nature and art,” 
said she, perceiving that I had been looking at the view from 

274 


Curious if True 

the great window, “ he will perhaps take pleasure in seeing 
the picture.” Here she sighed, with a little affectation of 
grief. “ You know the picture I allude to ? ” addressing my 
companion, who bowed assent and smiled a little maliciously, 
as I followed the lead of madame. 

I went after her to the other end of the saloon, noting by 
the way with what keen curiosity she caught up what was 
passing either in word or action on each side of her. When 
we stood opposite to the end-wall, I perceived a full-length 
picture of a handsome, peculiar-looking man, with — in spite 
of his good looks — a very fierce and scowling expression. 
My hostess clasped her hands together as her arms hung 
down in front, and sighed once more. Then, half in solilo- 
quy, she said — 

“ He was the love of my youth ; his stem, yet manly 
character first touched this heart of mine. When — when 
shall I cease to deplore his loss ? ” 

Not being acquainted with her enough to answer this 
question (if indeed it were not sufficiently answered by the 
fact of her second marriage), I felt awkward ; and, by way 
of saying something, I remarked — 

“ The countenance strikes me as resembling something I 
have seen before — in an engraving from an historical picture, 
I think ; only, it is there the principal figure in a group ; he 
is holding a lady by her hair, and threatening her with his 
scimitar, while two cavaliers are rushing up the stairs, 
apparently only just in time to save her life.” 

“ Alas, alas ! ” said she, “ you too accurately describe a 
miserable passage in my life, which has often been repre- 
sented in a false light. The best of husbands ” — here she 
sobbed, and became slightly inarticulate with her grief — “ will 
sometimes be displeased. I was young and curious — he was 
justly angry with my disobedience — my brothers were too 
hasty — the consequence is, I became a widow. 

After due respect for her tears, I ventured to suggest 
some commonplace consolation. She turned round sharply — 
No, monsieur ; my only comfort is that I have never 

275 


Curious if True 

forgiven the brothers who interfered so cruelly, in such an 
uncalled-for manner, between my dear husband and myself. 
To quote my friend, Monsieur Sganarelle — ‘ Ce sont les petites 
choses qui sont de temps en temps necessaires dans I’amiti^ ; 
et cinq ou six coups d’epee entre gens qui s’aiment ne font 
que ragaillardir I’affection.’ You observe, the colouring is 
not quite what it should be.” 

“In this hght the beard is of rather a peculiar tint,” 
said I. 

“Yes; the painter did not do it justice. It was most 
lovely, and gave him such a distinguished air, quite different 
from the common herd. Stay, I will show you the exact 
colour, if you will come near this flambeau ! ” And going 
near the light, she took off a bracelet of hair, with a 
magnificent clasp of pearls. It was peculiar, certainly. I 
did not know what to say. “ His precious, lovely beard ! ” 
said she. “ And the pearls go so well with the dehcate 
blue ! ” 

Her husband, who had come up to us, and waited till 
her eye fell upon him before venturing to speak, now said, 
“ It is strange Monsieur Ogre is not yet arrived ! ” 

“ Not at all strange,” said she tartly. “ He was always 
very stupid, and constantly falls into mistakes, in which he 
comes worse off; and it is very well he does, for he is a 
credulous and cowardly fellow. Not at all strange ! If you 
will ” — turning to her husband, so that I hardly heard her 
words, until I caught — “ Then everybody would have their 
rights, and we should have no more trouble. Is it not, 
monsieur? ” addressing me. 

“ If I were in England, I should imagine madame was 
speaking of the Eeform Bill, or the millennium ; but I am in 
ignorance.” 

And, just as I spoke, the great folding doors were thrown 
open wide ; and every one started to their feet, to greet a 
little old lady, leaning on a thin black wand — and — 

“ Madame la Fee-marraine,” was announced by a chorus 
of sweet shrill voices. 

27^ 


Curious if True 

And in a moment I was lying in the grass close by a 
hollow oak-tree, with the slanting glory of the dawning day 
shining full in my face, and thousands of little birds and 
delicate insects piping and warbling out their welcome to the 
ruddy splendour. 


277 


RIGHT AT LAST 


Doctor Brown was poor, and had to make his way in the 
world. He had gone to study his profession in Edinburgh, 
and his energy, ability, and good conduct had entitled him 
to some notice on the part of the professors. Once intro- 
duced to the ladies of their families, his prepossessing 
appearance and pleasing manners made him a universal 
favourite ; and perhaps no other student received so many 
invitations to dancing- and evening-parties, or was so often 
singled out to fill up an odd vacancy at the last moment at 
the dinner-table. No one knew particularly who he was, or 
where he sprang from ; but then he had no near relations, 
as he had once or twice observed ; so he was evidently not 
hampered with low- bom or low-bred connections. He had 
been in mourning for his mother, when he first came to 
college. 

All this much was recalled to the recollection of Professor 
Frazer by his niece Margaret, as she stood before him one 
morning in his study; telling him, in a low, but resolute 
voice that, the night before. Doctor James Brown had 
offered her marriage — that she had accepted him — and that 
he was intending to call on Professor Frazer (her uncle and 
natural guardian) that very morning, to obtain his consent 
to their engagement. Professor Frazer was perfectly aware, 
from Margaret’s manner, that his consent was regarded by 
her as a mere form, for that her mind was made up ; and he 
had more than once had occasion to find out how inflexible 
she could be. Yet he, too, was of the same blood, and held 
to his own opinions in the same obdurate manner. The 

27S 


Right at Last 

consequence of •which frequently was, that uncle and niece 
had argued themselves into mutual bitterness of feeling, 
without altering each other’s opinions one jot. But Professor 
Frazer could not restrain himself on this occasion, of all others. 

“ Then, Margaret, you will just quietly settle down to be 
a beggar, for that lad Brown has little or no money to think 
of marrying upon : you that might be my Lady Kennedy, if 
you would ! ” 

** I could not, uncle.” 

“ Nonsense, child ! Sir Alexander is a personable and 
agreeable man — middle-aged, if you will — well, a wilful 
woman maun have her way ; but, if I had had a notion that 
this youngster was sneaking into my house to cajole you 
into fancying him, I would have seen him far enough before 
I had ever let your aunt invite him to dinner. Ay! you 
may mutter ; but I say, no gentleman would ever have come 
into my house to seduce my niece’s affections, without first 
informing me of his intentions, and asking my leave.” 

“ Doctor Brown is a gentleman. Uncle Frazer, whatever 
you may think of him.” 

“ So you think — so you think. But who cares for the 
opinion of a love-sick girl ? He is a handsome, plausible young 
fellow, of good address. And I don't mean to deny his ability. 
But there is something about him I never did like, and now 

it’s accounted for. And Sir Alexander Well, well ! your 

aunt will be disappointed in you, Margaret. But you were 
always a headstrong girl. Has this Jamie Brown ever told 
you who or what his parents were, or where he comes from ? 
I don’t ask about his forbears, for he does not look like a 
lad who has ever had ancestors ; and you a Frazer of Lovat ! 
Fie, for shame, Margaret I Who is this Jamie Brown ? ” 

“ He is James Bro'wn, Doctor of Medicine of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh : a good, clever young man, whom I 
love -with my whole heart,” replied Margaret, reddening. 

“ Hoot ! is that the way for a maiden to speak ? Where 
does he come from ? Who are his kinsfolk ? Unless he 
can give a pretty good account of his family and prospects, 

279 


Right at Last 

I shall just bid him begone, Margaret ; and that I tell you 
fairly.” 

“ Uncle ” (her eyes were filling with hot indignant te&,rs), 
“ I am of age ; you know he is good and clever ; else why 
have you had him so often to your house ? I marry him, 
and not his kinsfolk. He is an orphan. I doubt if he has 
any relations that he keeps up with. He has no brothers 
nor sisters. I don’t care where he comes from.” 

“ What was his father ? ” asked Professor Frazer 
coldly. 

“ I don’t know. Why should I go prying into every 
particular of his family, and asking who his father was, and 
what was the maiden name of his mother, and when his 
grandmother was married ? ” 

“ Yet I think I have heard Miss Margaret Frazer speak 
up pretty strongly in favour of a long line of unspotted 
ancestry.” 

“I had forgotten our own, I suppose, when I spoke so. 
Simon, Lord Lovat, is a creditable great-uncle to the Frazers ! 
If all tales be true, he ought to have been hanged for a 
felon, instead of beheaded like a loyal gentleman.” 

“ Oh ! if you’re determined to foul your own nest, I have 
done. Let James Brown come in ; I will make him my 
bow, and thank him for condescending to marry a Frazer.” 

“ Uncle,” said Margaret, now fairly crying, “ don’t let 
us part in anger ! We love each other in our hearts. You 
have been good to me, and so has my aunt. But I have 
given my word to Doctor Brown, and I must keep it. I 
should love him, if he was the son of a ploughman. We 
don’t expect to be rich ; but he has a few hundreds to start 
with, and I have my own hundred a year” 

“ Well, well, child, don’t cry ! You have settled it all 
for yourself, it seems ; so I wash my hands of it. I shake 
off all responsibility. You will tell your aunt what arrange- 
ments you make with Doctor Brown about your marriage ; 
and I will do what you wish in the matter. But don’t send 
the young man in to me to ask my consent I I neither give 

280 


Right at Last 

it nor withhold it. It would have been different, if it had been 
Sir Alexander.”' 

“ Oh ! "Qncle Frazer, don’t speak so. See Doctor Brown, 
and at any rate — for my sake — tell him you consent ! Let 
me belong to you that much ! It seems so desolate at such 
a time to have to dispose of myself, as if nobody owned or 
cared for me.” 

The door was thrown open, and Doctor James Brown was 
announced. Margaret hastened away ; and, before he was 
aware, the Professor had given a sort of consent, without 
asking a question of the happy young man ; who hurried 
away to seek his betrothed, leaving her uncle muttering to 
himself. 

Both Doctor and Mrs. Frazer were so strongly opposed 
to Margaret’s engagement, in reality, that they could not 
help showing it by manner and implication ; although 
they had the grace to keep silent. But Margaret felt 
even more keenly than her lover that he was not wel- 
come in the house. Her pleasure in seeing him was 
destroyed by her sense of the coldness with which he 
was received, and she willingly yielded to his desire of a 
short engagement ; which was contrary to their original plan 
of waiting until he should be settled in practice in London, 
and should see his way clear to such an income as would 
render their marriage a prudent step. Doctor and Mrs. 
Frazer neither objected nor approved. Margaret would 
rather have had the most vehement opposition than this icy 
coldness. But it made her turn with redoubled affection to 
her warm-hearted and sympathising lover. Not that she 
had ever discussed her uncle and aunt’s behaviour with him. 
As long as he was apparently unaware of it, she would not 
awaken him to a sense of it. Besides, they had stood to her 
So long in the relation of parents, that she felt she had no 
right to bring in a stranger to sit in judgment upon them. 

So it was rather with a heavy heart that she arranged 
their future menage with Doctor Brown, unable to profit by 
her aunt’s experience and wisdom. But Margaret herself 

281 


Right at Last 

was a prudent and sensible girl. Although accustomed to a 
degree of comfort in her uncle’s house that almost amounted to 
luxury, she could resolutely dispense with it, when occasion 
required. When Doctor Brown started for London, to seek 
and prepare their new home, she enjoined him not to make 
any but the most necessary preparations for her reception. 
She would herself superintend all that was wanting when 
she came. He had some old furniture, stored up in a ware- 
house, which had been his mother’s. He proposed selling 
it, and buying new in its place. Margaret persuaded him 
not to do this, but to make it go as far as it could. The 
household of the newly-married couple was to consist of a 
Scotchwoman long connected with the Frazer family, who 
was to be the sole female servant, and of a man whom 
Doctor Brown picked up in London, soon after he had fixed 
on a house — a man named Crawford, who had lived for 
many years with a gentleman now gone abroad, who gave 
him the most excellent character, in reply to Doctor Brown’s 
inquiries. This gentleman had employed Crawford in a 
number of ways ; so that in fact he was a kind of Jack-of-all- 
trades ; and Doctor Brown, in every letter to Margaret, had 
some new accomplishment of his servant's to relate. This 
he did with the more fulness and zest, because Margaret 
had slightly questioned the wisdom of starting in life with a 
man-servant, but had yielded to Doctor Brown’s arguments 
on the necessity of keeping up a respectable appearance, 
making a decent show, &c., to any one who might be inclined 
to consult him, but be daunted by the appearance of old 
Christie out of the kitchen, and unwilling to leave a message 
with one who spoke such unintelligible English. Crawford 
was so good a carpenter that he could put up shelves, adjust 
faulty hinges, mend locks, and even went the length of 
constructing a box of some old boards that had once formed 
a packing-case. Crawford, one day, when his master was 
too busy to go out for his dinner, improvised an omelette as 
good as any Doctor Brown had ever tasted in Paris, when 
he was studying there. In short, Crawford was a kind of 

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4 


Right at Last 

Admirable Crichton in his way, and Margaret was quite 
convinced that Doctor Brown was right in his decision that 
they must have a man-servant ; even before she was respect- 
fully greeted by Crawford, as he opened the door to the 
newly-married couple, when they came to their new home 
after their short wedding tour. 

Doctor Brown was rather afraid lest Margaret should 
think the house bare and cheerless in its half-furnished state ; 
for he had obeyed her injunctions and bought as little 
furniture as might be, in addition to the few things he had 
inherited from his mother. His consulting-room (how grand 
it sounded!) was completely arranged, ready for stray 
patients ; and it was well calculated to make a good im- 
pression on them. There was a Turkey-carpet on the floor, 
that had been his mother’s, and was just sufi&ciently worn to 
give it the air of respectability which handsome pieces of 
furniture have when they look as if they had not just been 
purchased for the occasion, but are in some degree hereditary. 
The same appearance pervaded the room : the library-table 
(bought second-hand, it must be confessed), the bureau — 
that had been his mother’s — the leather chairs (as hereditary 
as the library-table), the shelves Crawford had put up for 
Doctor Brown’s medical books, a good engraving on the 
walls, gave altogether so pleasant an aspect to the apart- 
ment that both Doctor and Mrs. Brown thought, for that 
evening at any rate, that poverty was just as comfortable a 
thing as riches. Crawford had ventured to take the liberty 
of placing a few flowers about the room, as his humble way 
of welcoming his mistress — late autumn-flowers, blending 
the idea of summer with that of winter, suggested by the 
bright little fire ih the grate. Christie sent up delicious 
scones for tea ; and Mrs. Frazer had made up for her want 
of geniality, as well as she could, by a store of marmalade 
and mutton hams. Doctor Brown could not be easy in his 
comfort, until he had shown Margaret, almost with a groan, 
how many rooms were as yet unfurnished — how much 
remained to be done. But she laughed at his alarm lest she 

283 


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should be disappointed in her new home ; declared that she 
should like nothing better than planning and contriving; 
that, what with her own talent for upholstery and Crawford’s 
for joinery, the rooms would be furnished as if by magic, 
and no bills — the usual consequences of comfort — be forth- 
coming. But, with the morning and daylight. Doctor Brown’s 
anxiety returned. He saw and felt every crack in the 
ceiling, every spot on the paper, not for himself, but for 
Margaret. He was constantly in his own mind, as it seemed, 
comparing the home he had brought her to with the one she 
had left. He seemed constantly afraid lest she had repented, 
or would repent having married him. This morbid restless- 
ness was the only drawback to their great happiness ; and, 
to do away with it, Margaret was led into expenses much 
beyond her original intention. She bought this article in 
preference to that, because her husband, if he went shopping 
with her, seemed so miserable if he suspected that she 
denied herself the slightest wish on the score of economy. 
She learnt to avoid taking him out with her, when she went 
to make her purchases ; as it was a very simple thing to her 
to choose the least expensive thing, even though it were the 
ugliest, when she was by herself, but not a simple painless 
thing to harden her heart to his look of mortification, when 
she quietly said to the shopman that she could not afford 
this or that. On coming out of a shop after one of these 
occasions, he had said — 

“ Oh, Margaret, I ought not to have married you. You 
must forgive me — I have so loved you.” 

“ Forgive you, James ? ” said she. “ For making me so 
happy ? What should make you think I care so much for 
rep in preference to moreen? Don’t speal? so again, please !” 

“ Oh, Margaret ! but don’t forget how I ask you to for- 
give me.” 

Crawford was everything that he had promised to be, and 
more than could be desired. He was Margaret’s right hand 
in all her little household plans, in a way which irritated 
Christie not a little. This feud between Christie and Crawford 

284 


Right at Last 

was indeed the greatest discomfort in the household. Craw- 
ford was silently triumphant in his superior knowledge of 
London, in his favour upstairs, in his power of assisting his 
mistress, and in the consequent privilege of being frequently 
consulted. Christie was for ever regretting Scotland, and 
hinting at Margaret’s neglect of one who had followed her 
fortunes into a strange country, to make a favourite of a 
stranger, and one who. was none so good as he ought to be, 
as She would sometimes affirm. But, as she never brought 
any proof of her vague accusations, Margaret did not choose 
to question her, but set them down to a jealousy of her 
fellow-servant, which the mistress did all in her power to 
heal. On the whole, however, the four people forming this 
family lived together in tolerable harmony. Doctor Brown 
was more than satisfied with his house, his servants, his 
professional prospects, and most of all with his little energetic 
wife. Margaret, from time to time, was taken aback by certain 
moods of her husband’s ; but the tendency of these moods 
was not to weaken her affection, rather to call out a feeling 
of pity for what appeared to her morbid sufferings and sus- 
picions — a pity ready to be turned into sympathy, as soon 
as she could discover any definite cause for his occasional 
depression of spirits. Christie did not pretend to like 
Crawford ; but, as Margaret quietly dechned to listen to her 
grumblings and discontent on this head, and as Crawford 
himself was almost painfully solicitous to gain the good 
opinion of the old Scotch woman, there was no rupture 
between them. On the whole, the popular, successful Doctor 
Brown was apparently the most anxious person in his family. 
There could be no great cause for this as regarded his money 
affairs. By one of those lucky accidents which sometimes 
lift a man up out of his struggles, and carry him on to smooth, 
unencumbered ground, he made a great step in his pro- 
fessional progress ; and their income from this source was 
likely to be fully as much as Margaret and he had ever 
anticipated in their most sanguine moments, with the hkeli- 
hood, too, of steady increase, as the years went on. 

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I must explain myself more fully on this head. 

Margaret herself had rather more than a hundred a year ; 
sometimes, indeed, her dividends had amounted to a hundred 
and thirty or forty pounds ; but on that she dared not rely. 
Doctor Brown had seventeen hundred remaining of the three 
thousand left him by his mother ; and out of this he had to 
pay for some of the furniture, the bills for which had not 
been sent in at the time, in spite of all Margaret’s entreaties 
that such might be the case. They came in about a week 
before the time when the events I am going to narrate took 
place. Of course they amounted to more than even the 
prudent Margaret had expected; and she was a little dis- 
pirited to find how much money it would take to liquidate 
them. But, curiously and contradictorily enough — as she 
had often noticed before — any real cause for anxiety or dis- 
appointment did not seem to affect her husband’s cheerful- 
ness. He laughed at her dismay over her accounts, jingled 
the proceeds of that day’s work in his pockets, counted it out 
to her, and calculated the year’s probable income from that 
day’s gains. Margaret took the guineas, and carried them 
upstairs to her own secretaire in silence; having learnt the 
difficult art of trying to swallow down her household cares 
in the presence of her husband. When she came back, she 
was cheerful, if grave. He had taken up the bills in her 
absence, and had been adding them together. 

“Two hundred and thirty-six pounds,” he said, putting 
the accounts away, to clear the table for tea, as Crawford 
brought in the things. “ Why, I don’t call that much. I 
believe I reckoned on their coming to a great deal more. 
I’ll go into the City to-morrow, and sell out some shares, and 
set your little heart at ease. Now don’t go and put a spoon- 
ful less tea in to-night to help to pay these bills. Earning 
is better than saving, and I am earning at a famous rate. 
Give me good tea, Maggie, for I have done a good day’s 
work.” 

They were sitting in the doctor’s consulting-room, for the 
better economy of fire. To add to Margaret’s discomfort, 

286 


Right at Last 

the chimney smoked this evening. She had held her tongue 
from any repining words ; for she remembered the old 
proverb about a smoky chimney and a scolding wife; but 
she was more irritated by the puffs of smoke coming over 
her pretty white work than she cared to show ; and it was 
in a sharper tone than usual that she spoke, in bidding 
Crawford take care and have the chimney swept. The next 
morning all had cleared brightly off. Her husband had 
convinced her that their money matters were going on well ; 
the fire burned briskly at breakfast time ; and the unwonted 
sun shone in at the windows. Margaret was surprised, when 
Crawford told her that he had not been able to meet with a 
chimney-sweeper that morning ; but that he had tried to 
arrange the coals in the grate, so that, for this one morning 
at least, his mistress should not be annoyed, and, by the 
next, he would take care to secure a sweep. Margaret 
thanked him, and acquiesced in all plans about giving a 
general cleaning to the room ; the more readily, because she 
felt that she had spoken sharply the night before. She 
decided to go and pay all her bills, and make some distant 
calls on the next morning ; and her husband promised to go 
into the City and provide her with the money. 

This he did. He showed her the notes that evening, 
locked them up for the night in his bureau ; and, lo, in the 
morning they were gone ! They had breakfasted in the back 
parlour, or half-furnished dining-room. A charwoman was 
in the front room, cleaning after the sweeps. Doctor Brown 
went to his bureau, singing an old Scotch tune as he left the 
dining-room. It was so long before he came back, that 
Margaret went to look for him. He was sitting in the chair 
nearest to the bureau, leaning his head upon it, in an attitude 
of the deepest despondency. He did not seem to hear 
Margaret’s step, as she made her way among rolled-up 
carpets and chairs piled on each other. She had to touch 
him on the shoulder before she could rouse him. 

“ James, James ! ” she said in alarm. 

He looked up at her almost as if he did not know her. 

287 


Right at Last 

Oh, Margaret ! ” he said, and took hold of her hands, 
and hid his face in her neck. 

“ Dearest love, what is it ? ” she asked, thinking he was 
suddenly taken ill. 

Some one has been to my bureau since last night,” he 
groaned, without either looking up or moving. 

“ And taken the money,” said Margaret, in an instant 
understanding how it stood. It was a great blow; a great 
loss, far greater than the few extra pounds by which the 
bills had exceeded her calculations : yet it seemed as if 
she could bear it better. “ Oh dear ! ” she said, “ that is 
bad; but after all — Do you know,” she said, trying to raise 
his face, so that she might look into it, and give him the 
encouragement of her honest loving eyes, “ at first I thought 
you were deadly ill, and all sorts of dreadful possibilities 
rushed through my mind — it is such a relief to find that it is 
only money ” 

“ Only money ! ” he echoed sadly, avoiding her look, as 
if he could not bear to show her how much he felt it. 

“And after all,” she said with spirit, “it can’t be gone 
far. Only last night, it was here. The chimney-sweeps — we 
must send Crawford for the police directly. You did not take 
the numbers of the notes ? ” ringing the bell as she spoke. 

“ No ; they were only to be in our possession one night,” 
he said. 

“ No, to be sure not.” 

The charwoman now appeared at the door with her pail 
of hot water. Margaret looked into her face, as if to read 
guilt or innocence. She was a p-otegee of Christie’s, who 
was not apt to accord her favour easily, or without good 
grounds ; an honest, decent widow, with a large family to 
maintain by her labour — that was the character in which 
Margaret had engaged her; and she looked it. Grimy in 
her dress — because she could not spare the money or time 
to be clean — her skin looked healthy and cared for ; she had 
a straightforward, business-like appearance about her, and 
seemed in no ways daunted nor surprised to see Doctor and 

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Mrs. Brown standing in the middle of the room, in dis- 
pleased perplexity and distress. She went about her business 
without taking any particular notice of them. Margaret’s 
suspicions settled down yet more distinctly upon the chim- 
ney-sweeper ; but he could not have gone far ; the notes 
could hardly have got into circulation. Such a sum could 
not have been spent by such a man in so short a time ; and 
the restoration of the money was her first, her only object. 
She had scarcely a thought for subsequent duties, such as 
prosecution of the offender, and the like consequences of 
crime. While her whole energies were bent on the speedy 
recovery of the money, and she was rapidly going over the 
necessary steps to be taken, her husband “ sat all poured 
out into his chair,” as the Germans say ; no force in him to 
keep his limbs in any attitude requiring the slightest exer- 
tion ; his face sunk, miserable, and with that foreshadowing 
of the lines of age which sudden distress is apt to call out 
on the youngest and smoothest faces. 

“ What can Crawford be about ? ” said Margaret, pulling 
the bell again with vehemence. “ Oh, Crawford ! ” as the 
man at that instant appeared at the door. 

“ Is anything the matter ? ” he said, interrupting her, as 
if alarmed into an unusual discomposure by her violent 
ringing. “ I had just gone round the corner with the letter 
master gave me last night for the post ; and, when I came 
back Christie told me you had rung for me, ma’am. I beg 
your pardon, but I have hurried so,” and, indeed, his breath 
did come quickly, and his face was full of penitent anxiety. 

“ Oh, Crawford ! I am afraid the sweep has got into your 
master’s bureau, and taken all the money he put there last 
night. It is gone, at any rate. Did you ever leave him in 
the room alone ? ” 

“ I can’t say, ma’am ; perhaps I did. Yes ; I believe I 
did. I remember now — I had my work to do ; and I thought 
the charwoman was come, and I went to my pantry ; and 
some time after Christie came to me, complaining that Mrs. 
Eoberts was so late ; and then I knew that he must have 

289 u 


Right at Last 

been alone in the room. But, dear me, ma’am, who would 
have thought there had been so much wickedness in him ? ” 

“ How was it that he got into the bureau ? ” said Mar- 
garet, turning to her husband. “Was the lock broken ? ” 

He roused himself up, like one who wakens from sleep. 

“ Yes ! No ! I suppose I had turned the key without 
locking it last night. The bureau was closed, not locked, 
when I went to it this morning, and the bolt was shot.” 
He relapsed into inactive, thoughtful silence. 

“ At any rate, it is no use losing time in wondering now. 
Go, Crawford, as fast as you can, for a policeman. You 
know the name of the chimney-sweeper, of course,” she 
added, as Crawford was preparing to leave the room. 

“ Indeed, ma’am, I’m very sorry, but I just agreed with 
the first who was passing along the street. If I could have 
known ” 

But Margaret had turned away with an impatient gesture 
of despair. Crawford went, without another word, to seek a 
policeman. 

In vain did his wife try and persuade Doctor Brown to 
taste any breakfast ; a cup of tea was all he would try to 
swallow ; and that was taken in hasty gulps, to clear his dry 
throat, as he heard Crawford’s voice talking to the police- 
man whom he was ushering in. 

The policeman heard all and said little. Then the in- 
spector came. Doctor Brown seemed to leave all the talking 
to Crawford, who apparently liked nothing better. Margaret 
was infinitely distressed and dismayed , by the effect the 
robbery seemed to have had on her husband’s energies. The 
probable loss of such a sum was bad enough ; but there was 
something so weak and poor in character in letting it affect 
him so strongly as to deaden all energy and destroy all hopeful 
spring, that, although Margaret did not dare to define her 
feeling, nor the cause of it, to herself, she had the fact 
before her perpetually, that, if she were to judge of her hus- 
band from this morning only, she must learn to rely on 
herself alone in all cases of emergency. The inspector 

290 


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repeatedly turned from Crawford to Doctor and Mrs. Brown 
for answers to his inquiries. It was Margaret who replied, 
with terse, short sentences, very different from Crawford’s 
long, involved explanations. 

At length the inspector asked to speak to her alone. She 
followed him into the room, past the affronted Crawford and 
her despondent husband. The inspector gave one sharp 
look at the charwoman, who was going on with her scouring 
with stolid indifference, turned her out, and then asked 
Margaret where Crawford came from — how long he had 
hved with them, and various other questions, all showing 
the direction his suspicions had taken. This shocked Mar- 
garet extremely; hut she quickly answered every inquiry, 
and, at the end, watched the inspector’s face closely, and 
waited for the avowal of the suspicion. 

He led the way hack to the other room without a word, 
however. Crawford had left, and Doctor Brown was trying 
to read the morning’s letters (which had just been delivered) ; 
but his hands shook so much that he could not see a line. 

“ Doctor Brown,” said the inspector, “ I have httle doubt 
that your man-servant has committed this robbery. I judge 
so from his whole manner ; and from his anxiety to tell the 
story, and his way of trying to throw suspicion on the chim- 
ney-sweeper, neither whose name nor whose dwelHng he can 
give ; at least he says not. Your wife tells us he has already 
been out of the house this morning, even before he went to 
summon a pohceman ; so there is httle doubt that he has 
found means for conceahng or disposing of the notes ; and 
you say you do not know the numbers. However, that can 
probably be ascertained.” 

At this moment Christie knocked at the door, and, in a 
state of great agitation, demanded to speak to Margaret. 
She brought up an additional store of suspicious circum- 
stances, none of them much in themselves, but all tending 
to criminate her fellow-servant. She had expected to find 
herself blamed for starting the idea of Crawford’s guilt, and 
was rather surprised to find herself listened to with attention 

291 


Right at Last 

by the inspector. This led her to tell many other little 
things, all bearing against Crawford, which a dread of being 
thought jealous and quarrelsome had led her to conceal 
before from her master and mistress. At the end of her 
story the inspector said — 

“ There can be no doubt of the course to be taken. You, 
sir, must give your man-servant in charge. He will be taken 
before the sitting magistrate directly ; and there is already 
evidence enough to make him be remanded for a week, 
during which time we may trace the notes, and complete 
the chain.” 

“ Must I prosecute ? ” said Doctor Brown, almost lividly 
pale. It is, I own, a serious loss of money to me ; but 
there will be the further expenses of the prosecution — the 
loss of time — the ” — — 

He stopped. He saw his wife’s indignant eyes fixed 
upon him, and shrank from their look of unconscious 
reproach. 

“ Yes, inspector,” he said ; “ I give him in charge. Do 
what you will. Do what is right. Of course I take the 
consequences. We take the consequences. Don’t we, 
Margaret ? ” He spoke in a kind of wild, low voice, of 
which Margaret thought it best to take no notice. 

“Tell us exactly what to do,” she said very coldly and 
quietly, addressing herself to the policeman. 

He gave her the necessary directions as to their attending 
at the police-office, and bringing Christie as a witness, and 
then went away to take measures for securing Crawford. 

Margaret was surprised to find how httle hurry or 
violence needed to be used in Crawford’s arrest. She had 
expected to hear sounds of commotion in the house, if indeed 
Crawford himself had not taken the alarm and escaped. 
But, when she had suggested the latter apprehension to the 
inspector, he smiled, and told her that, when he had first 
heard of the charge from the policeman on the beat, he had 
stationed a detective officer within sight of the house, to 
watch all ingress or egress ; so that Crawford’s whereabouts 

292 


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would soon have been discovered, if he had attempted to 
escape. 

Margaret’s attention was now directed to her husband. 
He was making hurried preparations for setting off on his 
round of visits, and evidently did not wish to have any con- 
versation with her on the subject of the morning’s event. 
He promised to be back by eleven o’clock; before which 
time, the inspector assured them, their presence would not 
be needed. Once or twice. Doctor Brown said, as if to him- 
self, “It is a miserable business.” Indeed, Margaret felt it 
to be so ; and, now that the necessity for immediate speech 
and action was over, she began to fancy that she must be 
very hard-hearted — very deficient in common feeling ; inas- 
much as she had not suffered like her husband, at the dis- 
covery that the servant — whom they had been learning to 
consider as a friend, and to look upon as having their interests 
so warmly at heart — was, in all probability, a treacherous 
thief. She remembered all his pretty marks of attention to 
her, from the day when he had welcomed her arrival at her 
new home by his humble present of flowers, until only the 
day before, when, seeing her fatigued, he had, unasked, made 
her a cup of coffee — coffee such as none but he could make- 
How often had he thought of warm dry clothes for her hus- 
band ; how wakeful had he been at nights ; how diligent in 
the mornings ! It was no wonder that her husband felt 
this discovery of domestic treason acutely. It was she who 
was hard and selfish, thinking more of the recovery of the 
money than of the terrible disappointment in character, if 
the charge against Crawford were true. 

At eleven o’clock her husband returned with a cab. 
Christie had thought the occasion of appearing at a police- 
office worthy of her Sunday clothes, and was as smart as her 
possessions could make her. But Margaret and her husband 
looked as pale and sorrow- stricken as if they had been the 
accused, and not the accusers. 

Doctor Brown shrank from meeting Crawford’s eye, as 
the one took his place in the witness-box, the other in the 

293 


Right at Last 

dock. Yet Crawford was trying — Margaret was sure of this 
— to catch his master’s attention. Failing that, he looked 
at Margaret with an expression she could not fathom. In- 
deed, the whole character of his face was changed. Instead 
of the calm, smooth look of attentive obedience, he had 
assumed an insolent, threatening expression of defiance ; 
smiling occasionally in a most unpleasant manner, as Doctor 
Brown spoke of the bureau and its contents. He was re- 
manded for a week ; but, the evidence as yet being far from 
conclusive, bail for his appearance was taken. This bail was 
offered by his brother, a respectable tradesman, well known 
in his neighbourhood, and to whom Crawford had sent on 
his arrest. 

So Crawford was at large again, much to Christie’s dis- 
may ; who took off her Sunday clothes, on her return home, 
with a heavy heart, hoping, rather than trusting, that they 
should not all be murdered in their beds before the week was 
out. It must be confessed, Margaret herself was not entirely 
free from fears of Crawford’s vengeance ; his eyes had looked 
so maliciously and vindictively at her and at her husband as 
they gave their evidence. 

But his absence in the household gave Margaret enough 
to do to prevent her dwelling on foolish fears. His being 
away made a terrible blank in their daily comfort, which 
neither Margaret nor Christie — exert themselves as they 
would — could fill up ; and it was the more necessary that all 
should go on smoothly, as Doctor Brown’s nerves had 
received such a shock at the discovery of the guilt of his 
favourite, trusted servant, that Margaret was led at times to 
apprehend a serious illness. He would pace about the room at 
night, when he thought she was asleep, moaning to himself 
— and in the morning he would require the utmost persuasion 
to induce him to go out and see his patients. He was worse 
than ever, after consulting the lawyer whom he had employed 
to conduct the prosecution. There was, as Margaret was 
brought unwillingly to perceive, some mystery in the case ; 
for he eagerly took his letters from the post, going to the 

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door as soon as he heard the knock, and concealing their 
directions from her. As the week passed away, his nervous 
misery still increased. 

One evening — the candles were not lighted — he was sit- 
ting over the fire in a listless attitude, resting his head on his 
hand, and that supported on his knee — Margaret determined 
to try an experiment ; to see if she could not probe, and find 
out the nature of, the sore that he hid with such constant 
care. She took a stool and sat down at his feet, taking his 
hand in hers. 

“ Listen, dearest James, to an old story I once heard. 
It may interest you. There were two orphans, boy and girl 
in their hearts, though they were a young man and young 
woman in years. They were not brother and sister, and 
by-and-by they fell in love ; just in the same fond silly way 
you and I did, you remember. Well, the girl was amongst 
her own people ; but the boy was far away from his — if 
indeed he had any alive. But the girl loved him so dearly 
for himself, that sometimes she thought she was glad that 
he had no one to care for him but just her alone. Her 
friends did not like him as much as she did ; for, perhaps, 
they were wise, grave, cold people, and she, I dare say, was 
very foolish. And they did not like her marrying the boy ; 
which was just stupidity in them, for they had not a word 
to say against him. But, about a week before the marriage- 
day was fixed, they thought they had found out something — 
my darling love, don’t take away your hand — don’t tremble 
so, only just listen ! Her aunt came to her and said : ‘ Child, 
you must give up your lover : his father was tempted, and 
sinned ; and, if he is now alive, he is a transported convict. 
The marriage cannot take place.’ But the girl stood up and 
said: ‘If he has known this great sorrow and shame, he 
needs my love all the more. I will not leave him, nor 
forsake him, but love him all the better. And I charge you, 
aunt, as you hope to receive a blessing for doing as you 
would be done by, that you tell no one ! ’ I really think 
that girl awed her aunt, in some strange way, into secrecy. 

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Right at Last 

But, when she was left alone, she cried long and sadly to 
think what a shadow rested on the heart she loved so dearly ; 
and she meant to strive to lighten his life, and to conceal 
for ever that she had heard of its burden ; but now she 
thinks — Oh, my husband ! how you must have suffered ” — 
as he bent down his head on her shoulder and cried terrible 
man’s tears. 

“ God be thanked ! ” he said at length. “ You know all, 
and you do not shrink from me. Oh, what a miserable, 
deceitful coward I have been ! Suffered ! Yes — suffered 
enough to drive me mad; and, if I had but been brave, I 
might have been spared all this long twelve months of agony. 
But it is right I should have been punished. And you knew 
it even before we were married, when you might have been 
drawn back ! ” 

“I could not; you would not have broken off your 
engagement with me, would you, under the like circum- 
stances, if our cases had been reversed ? ” 

“I do not know. Perhaps I might; for I am not so 
brave, so good, so strong as you, my Margaret. How could 
I be? Let me tell you more. We wandered about, my 
mother and I, thankful that our name was such a common 
one, but shrinking from every allusion — in a way which no 
one can understand, who has not been conscious of an 
inward sore. Living in an assize town was torture ; a com- 
mercial one was nearly as bad. My father was the son of 
a dignified clergyman, well known to his brethren : a cathe- 
dral town was to be avoided, because there the circumstance 
of the Dean of Saint Botolph’s son having been transported 
was sure to be known. I had to be educated ; therefore we 
had to live in a town ; for my mother could not bear to part 
from me, and I was sent to a day-school. We were very 
poor for our station — no ! we had no station ; we were the 
wife and child of a convict — poor for my mother’s early 
habits, I should have said. But, when I was about fourteen, 
my father died in his exile, leaving, as convicts in those days 
sometimes did, a large fortune. It all came to us. My 

296 


Right at Last 

mother shut herself up, and cried and prayed for a whole 
day. Then she called me in, and took me into her counsel. 
We solemnly pledged ourselves to give the money to some 
charity, as soon as I was legally of age. Till then the 
interest was laid by, every penny of it ; though sometimes 
we were in sore distress for money, my education cost so 
much. But how could we tell in what way the money had 
been accumulated ? ” Here he dropped his voice. “ Soon 
after I was one-and-twenty, the papers rang with admiration 
of the unknown munificent donor of certain sums. I loathed 
their praises. I shrank from all recollection of my father. 
I remembered him dimly, but always as angry and violent 
with my mother. My poor, gentle mother ! Margaret, she 
loved my father ; and, for her sake, I have tried, since her 
death, to feel kindly towards his memory. Soon after 
my mother’s death, I came to know you, my jewel, my 
treasure ! ” 

After a while, he began again. “ But, oh, Margaret ! even 
now you do not know the worst. After my mother’s death, 
I found a bundle of law papers — of newspaper reports about 
my father’s trial. Poor soul ! why she had kept them, I 
cannot say. They were covered over with notes in her 
handwriting ; and, for that reason, I kept them. It was so 
touching to read her record of the days spent by her in her 
solitary innocence, while he was embroiling himself deeper 
and deeper in crime. I kept this bundle (as I thought so 
safely !) in a secret drawer of my bureau ; but that wretch 
Crawford has got hold of it. I missed the papers that very 
morning. The loss of them was infinitely worse than the 
loss of the money; and now Crawford threatens to bring 
out the one terrible fact, in open court, if he can ; and his 
lawyer may do it, I believe. At any rate, to have it blazoned 
out to the world — I who have spent my life in fearing this 
hour ! But most of all for you, Margaret ! Still — if only it 
could be avoided ! Who will employ the son of Brown, the 
noted forger ? I shall lose all my practice. Men will look 
askance at me as I enter their doors. They will drive me 

297 


Right at Last 

into crime. I sometimes fear that crime is hereditary ! Oh, 
Margaret ! what am I to do ? ” 

“ What can you do ? ” she asked. 

“ I can refuse to prosecute.*' 

“ Let Crawford go free, you knowing him to be guilty ? ” 

“ I know him to be guilty.” 

“ Then, simply, you cannot do this thing. You let loose 
a criminal upon the public.” 

“ But, if I do not, we shall come to shame and poverty. 
It is for you I mind it, not for myself. I ought never to 
have married.” 

“ Listen to me. I don’t care for poverty ; and, as to 
shame, I should feel it twenty times more grievously, if you 
and I consented to screen the guilty, from any fear or for any 
selfish motives of our own. I don’t pretend that I shall not 
feel it, when first the truth is known. But my shame will 
turn into pride, as I watch you live it down. You have been 
rendered morbid, dear husband, by having something all 
your life to conceal. Let the world know the truth, and say 
the worst. You will go forth a free, honest, honourable man, 
able to do your future work without fear.” 

“ That scoundrel Crawford has sent for an answer to his 
impudent note,” said Christie, putting in her head at the 
door. 

“ Stay ! May I write it ? ” said Margaret. 

She wrote : — 

“ Whatever you may do or say, there is but one course 
open to us. No threats can deter your master from doing 
his duty. 

“Margaret Brown.” 

“ There ! ” she said, passing it to her husband ; “ he will 
see that I know all ; and I suspect he has reckoned some- 
thing on your tenderness for me.” 

Margaret’s note only enraged, it did not daunt, Crawford. 
Before a week was out, every one who cared knew that 
Doctor Brown, the rising young physician, was son of the 

298 


Right at Last 

notorious Brown, the forger. All the consequences took’ 
place which he had anticipated. Crawford had to suffer a 
severe sentence; and Doctor Brown and his wife had to 
leave their house and go to a smaller one ; they had to pinch 
and to screw, aided in all most zealously hy the faithful 
Christie. But Doctor Brown was lighter-hearted than he 
had ever been before in his conscious lifetime. His foot 
was now firmly planted on the ground, and every step he 
rose was a sure gain. People did say that Margaret had 
been seen, in those worst times, on her hands and knees 
cleaning her own door-step. But I don’t believe it, for 
Christie would never have let her do that. And, as far as 
my own evidence goes, I can only say that, the last time 
I was in London, I saw a brass-plate, with “ Doctor James 
Brown ” upon it, on the door of a handsome house in a 
handsome square. And as I looked, I saw a brougham drive 
up to the door, and a lady get out, and go into that housei 
who was certainly the Margaret Frazer of old days — graver ; 
more portly; more stern, I had almost said. But, as I 
watched and thought, I saw her come to the dining-room 
window with a baby in her arms, and her whole face melted 
into a smile of infinite sweetness. 


299 


THE GREY WOMAN 


POETION I 

There is a mill by the Neckar-side, to which many people 
resort for coffee, according to the fashion which is almost 
national in Germany. There is nothing particularly attrac- 
tive in the situation of this mill ; it is on the Mannheim (the 
flat and unromantic) side of Heidelberg. The river turns the 
mill-wheel with a plenteous gushing sound ; the out-buildings 
and the dwelling-house of the miller form a well-kept dusty 
quadrangle. Again, further from the river there is a garden 
full of willows, and arbours, and flower-beds not well kept, 
but very profuse in flowers and luxuriant creepers, knotting 
and looping the arbours together. In each of these arbours 
is a stationary table of white painted wood, and light movable 
chairs of the same colour and material. 

I went to drink coffee there with some friends in 184 — . 
The stately old miller came out to greet us, as some of the 
party were known to him of old. He was of a grand build of 
a man ; and his loud musical voice, with its tone friendly and 
familiar, his rolling laugh of welcome, went well with the 
keen bright eye, the fine cloth of his coat, and the general 
look of substance about the place. Poultry of all kinds 
abounded in the mill-yard, where there were ample means of 
livelihood for them strewed on the ground ; but, not content 
with this, the miller took out handfuls of corn from the sacks, 
and threw hberally to the cocks and hens that ran almost 
under his feet in their eagerness. And, all the time he was 
doing this, as it were habitually, he was talking to us, and 

300 


The Grey Woman 

ever and anon calling to his daughter and the serving- maids, 
to bid them hasten the coffee we had ordered. He followed 
us to an arbour, and saw us served to his satisfaction with 
the best of everything we could ask for ; and then left us to 
go round to the different arbours and see that each party was 
properly attended to ; and, as he went, this great, prosperous, 
happy-looking man whistled softly one of the most plaintive 
airs I ever heard. 

“ His family,” said one of my friends, “ have held this 
mill ever since the old Palatinate days ; or rather, I should 
say, have possessed the ground ever since then, for two 
successive mills of theirs have been burnt down by the 
French. If you want to see Scherer in a passion, just talk 
to him of the possibility of a French invasion.” 

But at this moment, still whisthng that mournful air, we 
saw the miller going down the steps that led from the some- 
what raised garden into the mill-yard ; and so I seemed to 
have lost my chance of putting him in a passion. 

We had nearly finished our coffee, and our kucheUy 
and our cinnamon cake, when heavy splashes fell on our 
thick leafy covering ; quicker and quicker they came, coming 
through the tender leaves, as if they were tearing them 
asunder ; all the people in the garden were hurrying under 
shelter, or seeking for their carriages standing outside. Up 
the steps the miller came hastening, with a crimson umbrella, 
fit to cover every one left in the garden, and followed by his 
daughter, and one or two maidens, each bearing an umbrella. 

“ Come into the house — come in, I say ! It is a summer- 
storm, and will flood the place for an hour or two, tiU the 
river carries it away. Here, here ! ” 

And we followed him back into his own house. We went 
into the kitchen first. Such an array of bright copper and 
tin vessels I never saw ; and all the wooden things were as 
thoroughly scoured. The red-tiled floor was spotless when 
we went in, but in two minutes it was all over slop and dirt 
with the tread of many feet ; for the kitchen was filled, and 
still the worthy miller kept bringing in more people under 

301 


The Grey Woman 

his great crimson umbrella. He even called the dogs in, and 
made them he down under the tables. 

His daughter said something to him in German, and he 
shook his head merrily at her. Everybody laughed. 

“ What did she say? ” I asked. 

“ She told him to bring the ducks in next ; but, indeed, if 
more people come we shall be suffocated. What with the 
thundery weather, and the stove, and all these steaming 
clothes, I really think we must ask leave to pass on. 
Perhaps we might go in and see Frau Scherer ? ” 

My friend asked the daughter of the house for permission 
to go into an inner chamber and see her mother. It was 
granted ; and we went into a sort of saloon, overlooking the 
Neckar ; very small, very bright, and very close. The floor 
was slippery with poHsh ; long narrow pieces of looking- 
glass against the walls reflected the perpetual motion of the 
river opposite; a white porcelain stove, with some old- 
fashioned ornaments of brass about it ; a sofa, covered with 
Utrecht velvet, a table before it, and a piece of worsted- 
worked carpet under it; a vase of artificial flowers; and, 
lastly, an alcove with a bed in it, on which lay the paralysed 
wife of the good miller, knitting busily, formed the furniture. 
I spoke as if this was all that was to be seen in the room ; 
but, sitting quietly, while my friend kept up a brisk conver- 
sation in a language which I but half understood, my eye 
was caught by a picture in a dark corner of the room, and I 
got up to examine it more nearly. 

It was that of a young girl of extreme beauty : evidently 
of middle rank. There was a sensitive refinement in her 
face, as if she almost shrank from the gaze which, of 
necessity, the painter must have fixed upon her. It was not 
over-well painted ; but I felt that it must have been a good 
likeness, from this strong impress of peculiar character which 
I have tried to describe. From the dress, I should guess it 
to have been painted in the latter half of the last century. 
And I afterwards heard that I was right. 

There was a little pause in the conversation. 

302 


The Grey Woman 

“ Will you ask Frau Scherer who this is ? ” 

My friend repeated my question, and received a long 
reply in German. Then she turned round and translated it 
to me. 

“ It is the hkeness of a great-aunt of her husband’s.” 
(My friend was standing by me, looking at the picture with 
sympathetic curiosity.) “ See ! here is the name on the 
open page of this Bible, ‘ Anna Scherer, 1778.’ Frau 
Scherer says there is a tradition in the family that this pretty 
girl, with her complexion of hlies and roses, lost her colour 
so entirely through fright, that she was known by the name 
of the Grey Woman. She speaks as if this Anna Scherer 
lived in some state of lifelong terror. But she does not know 
details ; refers me to her husband for them. She thinks he 
has some papers which were written by the original of that 
picture for her daughter, who died in this very house not 
long after our friend there was married. We can ask Herr 
Scherer for the whole story if you like.” 

“ Oh yes, pray do ! ” said I. And, as our host came in 
at this moment to ask how we were faring, and to tell us 
that he had sent to Heidelberg for carriages to convey us 
home, seeing no chance of the heavy rain abating, my friend, 
after thanking him, passed on to my request. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, his face changing, “ the aunt Anna had 
a sad history. It was all owing to one of those hellish 
Frenchmen; and her daughter suffered for it— the cousin 
Ursula, as we all called her when I was a child. To be sure, 
the good cousin Ursula was his child as well. The sins of 
the fathers are visited on their children. The lady would 
like to know all about it, would she ? Well, there are papers 
— a kind of apology the aunt Anna wrote for putting an end 
to her daughter’s engagement — or rather, facts which she 
revealed, that prevented cousin Ursula from marrying the 
man she loved; and so she would never have any other 
good fellow ; else, I have heard say, my father would have 
been thankful to have made her his wife.” All this time, he 
was rummaging in the drawer of an old-fashioned bureau ; 

303 


The Grey Woman 

and now he turned round, with a bundle of yellow MSS. in 
his hand, which he gave to my friend, saying, “ Take it 
home, take it home ; and, if you care to make out our crabbed 
German writing, you may keep it as long as you like, and 
read it at your leisure. Only, I must have it back again, 
when you have done with it, that’s all.” 

And so we became possessed of the manuscript of the 
following letter, which it was our employment, during many 
a long evening that ensuing winter, to translate, and in some 
parts to abbreviate. The letter began with some reference to 
the pain which she had already inflicted upon her daughter 
by some unexplained opposition to a project of marriage; 
but I doubt if, without the clue with which the good miller 
had furnished us, we could have made out even this much 
from the passionate, broken sentences that made us fancy 
that some scene between the mother and daughter — and 
possibly a third person — had occurred, just before the mother 
had begun to write. 

“ Thou dost not love thy child, mother ! Thou dost not 
care, if her heart is broken ! ” Ah, God ! and these words 
of my heart-beloved Ursula ring in my ears, as if the sound 
of them would fill them when I lie a-dying. And her poor 
tear-stained face comes between me and everything else. 
Child! hearts do not break; life is very tough, as well as 
very terrible. But I will not decide for thee. I will tell all ; 
and thou shalt bear the burden of choice. I may be wrong ; 
I have little wit left, and never had much, I think ; but an 
instinct serves me in place of judgment, and that instinct 
tells me that thou and thy Henri must never be married. 
Yet I may be in error. I would fain make my child happy. 
Lay this paper before the good priest Schriesheim, if, after 
reading it, thou hast doubts which make thee uncertain. 
Only I will tell thee all now, on condition that no spoken 
word ever passes between us on the subject. It would kill 
me to be questioned. I should have to setj all present again. 

My father held, as thou knowest, the mill on the Neckar, 

304 


The Grey Woman 

where thy new-found uncle, Scherer, now lives. Thou 
rememberest the surprise with which we were received there, 
last vintage twelvemonth. How thy uncle disbelieved me, 
when I said that I was his sister Anna, whom he had long 
believed to be dead ; and how I had to lead thee underneath 
the picture, painted of me long ago, and point out, feature 
by feature, the likeness between it and thee ; and how, as I 
spoke, I recalled first to my own mind, and then by speech 
to his, the details of the time when it was painted ; the 
merry words that passed between us, then a happy boy and 
girl ; the position of the articles of furniture in the room ; 
our father’s habits; the cherry-tree, now. cut down, that 
shaded the window of my bed-room, through which my 
brother was wont to squeeze himself, in order to spring on 
to the topmost bough that would bear his weight; and 
thence he would pass me back his cap, laden with fruit, to 
where I sat on the window-sill, too sick with fright for him 
to care much for eating the cherries. 

And at length Fritz gave way, and believed me to be his 
sister Anna, even as though I were risen from the dead. 
And thou rememberest how he fetched in his wife, and told 
her that I was not dead, but was come back to the old home 
once more, changed as I was. And she would scarce beheve 
him, and scanned me with a cold, distrustful eye; till at 
length — for I knew her of old as Babette Muller — I said 
that I was well-to-do, and needed not to seek out friends for 
what they had to give. And then she asked — not me, but 
her husband — why I had kept silent so long, leading all — 
father, brother, every one that loved me in my own dear 
home — to esteem me dead. And then thine uncle (thou 
rememberest ?) said, he cared not to know more than I cared 
to tell ; that I was his Anna, found again, to be a blessing to 
him in his old age, as I had been in his boyhood. I thanked 
him in my heart for his trust ; for, were the need for telling 
all less than it seems to me now, I could not speak of my 
past life. But she, who was my sister-in-law still, held back 
her welcome, and, for want of that, I did not go to live in 

305 X 


The Grey Woman 

Heidelberg as I had planned beforehand, in order to be near 
my brother Fritz, but contented myself with his promise to 
be a father to my Ursula when I should die and leave this 
weary world. 

That Babette Muller was, as I may say, the cause of all 
my life’s suffering. She was a baker’s daughter in Heidel- 
berg — a great beauty, as people said, and, indeed, as I could 
see for myself. I, too — thou sawest my picture— was 
reckoned a beauty, and I believe I was so. Babette Muller 
looked upon me as a rival. She liked to be admired, and 
had no one much to love her. I had several people to love 
me —thy grandfather, Fritz, the old servant Kathchen, Karl, 
the head apprentice at the mill — and I feared admiration 
and notice, and the being stared at as the “ Schone Miillerin,** 
whenever I went to make my purchases in Heidelberg. 

Those were happy, peaceful days. I had Kathchen to 
help me in the housework ; and whatever we did pleased my 
brave old father, who was always gentle and indulgent 
towards us women, though he was stern enough with the 
apprentices in the mill. Karl, the oldest of these, was his 
favourite ; and I can see now that my father wished him to 
marry me, and that Karl himself was desirous to do so. 
But Karl was rough-spoken, and passionate — not with me, 
but with the others — and I shrank from him in a way which, 
I fear, gave him pain. And then came thy uncle Fritz’s 
marriage; and Babette was brought to the mill, to be its 
mistress. Not that I cared much for giving up my post ; for, 
in spite of my father’s great kindness, I always feared that 
I did not manage well for so large a family (with the men, 
and a girl under Kathchen, we sat down eleven each night to 
supper). But when Babette began to find fault with Kathchen, 
I was unhappy at the blame that fell on faithful servants ; 
and, by-and-by, I began to see that Babette was egging on 
Karl to make more open love to me, and, as she once said, 
to get done with it, and take me off to a home of my own. 
My father was growing old, and did not perceive all my daily 
discomfort. The more Karl advanced, the more I disliked 

306 


The Grey Woman 

him. He was good in the main ; hut I had no notion of 
being married, and could not bear any one who talked to me 
about it. 

Things were in this way when I had an invitation to go 
to Carlsruhe to visit a schoolfellow, of whom I had been 
very fond. Babette was all for my going ; I don’t think I 
wanted to leave home, and yet I had been very fond of 
Sophie Eupprecht. But I was always shy among strangers. 
Somehow, the affair was settled for me, but not until both 
Fritz and my father had made inquiries as to the character 
and position of the Eupprechts. They learned that the 
father had held some kind of inferior position about the 
Grand-duke’s court, and was now dead, leaving a widow, 
a noble lady, and two daughters, the elder of whom was 
Sophie, my friend. Madame Eupprecht was not rich, but 
more than respectable — genteel. When this was ascertained, 
my father made no opposition to my going; Babette for- 
warded it by all the means in her power ; and even my dear 
Fritz had his word to say in its favour. Only Kathchen was 
against it — Kathchen and Karl. The opposition of Karl did 
more to send me to Carlsruhe than anything. For I could 
have objected to go ; but, when he took upon himself to ask 
what was the good of going a-gadding, visiting strangers of 
whom no one' knew anything, I yielded to circumstances — 
to the pulling of Sophie and the pushing of Babette. I was 
silently vexed, I remember, at Babette’s inspection of my 
clothes ; at the way in which she settled that this gown was 
too old-fashioned, or that too common, to go with me on my 
visit to a noble lady ; and at the way in which she took upon 
herself to spend the money my father had given me to buy 
what was requisite for the occasion. And yet I blamed 
myself, for every one else had thought her so kind for doing 
all this ; and she herself meant kindly, too. 

At last I quitted the mill by the Neckar-side. It was a 
long day’s journey, and Fritz went with me to Carlsruhe. 
The Eupprechts lived on the third floor of a house a little 
behind one of the principal streets, in a cramped-up court, 

307 


The Grey Woman 

to which we gained admittance through a doorway in the 
street. I remember how pinched their rooms looked after 
the large space we had at the mill ; and yet they had an 
air of grandeur about them which was new to me, and which 
gave me pleasure, faded as some of it was. Madame 
Eupprecht was too formal a lady for me ; I was never at 
my ease with her ; but Sophie was all that I had recollected 
her at school — kind, affectionate, and only rather too ready 
with her expressions of admiration and regard. The little 
sister kept out of our way ; and that was all we needed, in 
the first enthusiastic renewal of our early friendship. The 
one great object of Madame Eupprecht’ s life was to retain 
her position in society ; and, as her means were much 
diminished since her husband’s death, there was not much 
comfort, though there was a great deal of show, in their way 
of living ; just the opposite of what it was at my father’s 
house. I believe that my coming was not too much desired 
by Madame Eupprecht, as I brought with me another mouth 
to be fed ; but Sophie had spent a year or more in entreating 
for permission to invite me, and her mother, having once con- 
sented, was too well-bred not to give me a stately welcome. 

The life in Carlsruhe was very different from what it was 
at home. The hours were later, the coffee was weaker in 
the morning, the pottage was weaker, the boiled-beef less 
relieved by other diet ; the dresses finer, the evening engage- 
ments constant. I did not find these visits pleasant. We 
might not knit, which would have relieved the tedium a 
httle ; but we sat in a circle, talking together, only interrupted 
occasionally by a gentleman, who, breaking out of the knot 
of men who stood near the door, talking eagerly together, 
stole across the room on tiptoe, his hat under his arm, and, 
bringing his feet together in the position we call the first at 
the dancing -school, made a low bow to the lady he was 
going to address. The first time I saw these manners I 
could not help smiling; but Madame Eupprecht saw me, 
and spoke to me next morning rather severely, telling me 
that, of course, in my country breeding I could have seen 

308 


The Grey Woman 

nothing of court manners, or French fashions, but that that 
was no reason for my laughing at them. Of course I tried 
never to smile again in company. This visit to Carlsruhe 
took place in ’89, just when every one was full of 
the events taking place at Paris ; and yet at Carlsruhe 
French fashions were more talked of than French pohtics. 
Madame Eupprecht, especially, thought a great deal of all 
French people. And this again was quite different to us at 
home. Fritz could hardly bear the name of a Frenchman ; 
and it had nearly been an obstacle to my visit to Sophie that 
her mother preferred being called Madame to her proper 
title of Frau. 

One night I was sitting next to Sophie, and longing 
for the time when we might have supper and go home, 
so as to be able to speak together — a thing forbidden by 
Madame Eupprecht’s rules of etiquette, which strictly pro- 
hibited any but the most necessary conversation passing 
between members of the same family when in society. I 
was sitting, I say, scarcely keeping back my inclination to 
yawn, when two gentlemen came in, one of whom was 
evidently a stranger to the whole party, from the formal 
manner in which the host led him up, and presented him to 
the hostess. I thought I had never seen any one so hand- 
some or so elegant. His hair was powdered, of course; 
but one could see from his complexion that it was fair in 
its natural state. His features were as delicate as a girl’s, 
and set off by two little “ mouches,” as we called patches in 
those days ; one at the left corner of his mouth, the other 
prolonging, as it were, the right eye. His dress was blue 
and silver. I was so lost in admiration of this beautiful 
young man, that I was as much surprised as if the angel 
Gabriel had spoken to me, when the lady of the house 
brought him forward to present him to me. She called him 
Monsieur de la Tourelle, and he began to speak to me in 
French ; but, though I understood him perfectly, I dared not 
trust myself to reply to him in that language. Then he 
tried German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I 

309 


The Grey Woman 

thought charming. But, before the end of the evening, 
I became a little tired of the affected softness and effeminacy 
of his manners, and the exaggerated compliments he paid 
me, which had the effect of making all the company turn 
round and look at me. Madame Eupprecht was, however, 
pleased with the precise thing that displeased me. She liked 
either Sophie or me to create a sensation; of course she 
would have preferred that it should have been her daughter, 
but her daughter’s friend was next best. As we went away, 
I heard Madame Eupprecht and Monsieur de la Tourelle 
reciprocating civil speeches with might and main, from which 
I found out that the French gentleman was coming to call 
on us the next day. I do not know whether I was more 
glad or frightened, for I had been kept upon stilts of good 
manners all the evening. But still I was flattered when 
Madame Eupprecht spoke as if she had invited him because 
he had shown pleasure in my society, and even more gratified 
by Sophie’s ungrudging delight at the evident interest I had 
excited in so fine and agreeable a gentleman. Yet, with all 
this, they had hard work to keep me from running out of the 
salon the next day, when we heard his voice inquiring at the 
gate on the stairs for Madame Eupprecht. They had made 
me put on my Sunday gown, and they themselves were 
dressed as for a reception. 

When he had gone away, Madame Eupprecht congratu- 
lated me on the conquest I had made ; for, indeed, he had 
scarcely spoken to any one else, beyond what mere civility 
required, and had almost invited himself to come in the 
evening to bring some new song, which was all the fashion 
in Paris, he said. Madame Eupprecht had been out all the 
morning, as she told me, to glean information about Monsieur 
de la Tourelle. He was a p'ojprietairey and had a small chateau 
on the Vosges mountains ; he owned land there, but had a 
large income from some sources quite independent of this 
property. Altogether, he was a good match, as she empha- 
tically observed. She never seemed to think that I could 
refuse him after this account of his wealth ; nor do I believe 

310 


The Grey Woma 

she would have allowed Sophie a choice, e 
as old and ugly as he was young and hanc 
quite know — so many events have come to ^ 
and blurred the clearness of my recollections- 
him or not. He was very much devoted to me ; he aimc^o 
frightened me by the excess of his demonstrations of love. 
And he was very charming to everybody around me, who 
all spoke of him as the most fascinating of men, and of me 
as the most fortunate of girls. And yet I never felt quite 
at my ease with him. I was always relieved when his visits 
were over, although I missed his presence when he did not 
come. He prolonged his visit to the friend with whom he 
was staying at Carlsruhe, on purpose to woo me. He 
loaded me with presents, which I was unwilling to take; 
only, Madame Eupprecht seemed to consider me an affected 
prude if I refused them. Many of these presents consisted 
of articles of valuable old jewellery, evidently belonging to 
his family : by accepting these I doubled the ties which were 
formed around me by circumstances even more than by my 
own consent. In those days we did not write letters to 
absent friends as frequently as is done now, and I had been 
unwilling to name him in the few letters that I wrote home. 
At length, however, I learned from Madame Eupprecht that 
she had written to my father to announce the splendid 
conquest I had made, and to request his presence at my 
betrothal. I started with astonishment. I had not realised 
that affairs had gone so far as this. But when she asked 
me, in a stern, offended manner, what I had meant by my 
conduct, if I did not intend to marry Monsieur de la Tourelle 
— I had received his visits, his presents, all his various 
advances without showing any unwillingness or repugnance 
— (and it was all true ; I had shown no repugnance, though 
I did not wish to be married to him ; at least, not so soon) — 
what could I do but hang my head, and silently consent to 
the rapid announcement of the only course which now 
remained for me, if I would not be esteemed a heartless 
coquette all the rest of my days ? 

311 


The Grey Woman 

ne difficulty, which I afterwards learnt that 
had obviated, about my betrothal taking 
3 . My father, and Fritz especially, were for 
_ ioturn to the mill, and there be betrothed, and 
ui^ence be married. But the Eupprechts and Monsieur de 
la Tourelle were equally urgent on the other side; and 
Babette was unwilling to have the trouble of the commotion 
at the mill, and also, I think, a little disliked the idea of the 
contrast of my grander marriage with her own. 

So my father and Fritz came over to the betrothal. They 
were to stay at an inn in Carlsruhe for a fortnight, at the 
end of which time the marriage was to take place. Monsieur 
de la Tourelle told me he had business at home, which would 
oblige him to be absent during the interval between the two 
events ; and I was very glad of it, for I did not think that 
he valued my father and my brother as I could have wished 
him to do. He was very polite to them ; put on all the soft, 
grand manner, which he had rather dropped with me ; and 
complimented us all round, beginning with my father and 
Madame Eupprecht, and ending with httle Alwina. But he 
a little scoffed at the old-fashioned church- ceremonies which 
my father insisted on ; and I fancy Fritz must have taken 
some of his compliments as satire, for I saw certain signs 
of manner by which I knew that my future husband, for all 
his civil words, had irritated and annoyed my brother. But 
all the money arrangements were liberal in the extreme, 
and more than satisfied, almost surprised, my father. Even 
Fritz lifted up his eyebrows and whistled. 1 alone did not 
care about anything. I was bewitched — in a dream — a 
kind of despair. I had got into a net through my own 
timidity and weakness, and I did not see how to get out 
of it. I clung to my own home-people that fortnight, as I 
had never done before. Their voices, their ways, were all 
so pleasant and familiar to me, after the constraint in which 
I had been living. I might speak and do as I liked without 
being corrected by Madame Eupprecht, or reproved in a 
dehcate, complimentary way by Monsieur de la Tourelle. 

312 


The Grey Woman 

One day, I said to my father that I did not want to be 
married, and that I would rather go back to the dear old mill ; 
but he seemed to feel this speech of mine as dereliction of 
duty as great as if I had committed perjury ; as if, after the 
ceremony of betrothal, no one had any right over me but 
my future husband. And yet he asked me some solemn 
questions ; but my answers were not such as to do me any 
good. 

“Dost thou know any fault or crime in this man that 
should prevent God’s blessing from resting on thy marriage 
with him ? Dost thou feel aversion or repugnance to him 
in any way ? ’’ 

And to all this what could I say ? I could only stammer 
out that I did not think I loved him enough ; and my poor 
old father saw in this reluctance only the fancy of a silly 
girl who did not know her own mind, but who had now gone 
too far to recede. 

So we were married, in the Court chapel, a privilege 
which Madame Eupprecht had used no end of efforts to 
obtain for us, and which she must have thought was to 
secure us all possible happiness, both at the time and in 
recollection afterwards. 

We were married ; and after two days spent in festivity 
at Carlsruhe, among all our new fashionable friends there, 
I bade good-bye for ever to my dear old father. I had 
begged my husband to take me by way of Heidelberg to his 
old castle in the Vosges ; but I found an amount of deter- 
mination, under that effeminate appearance and manner, 
for which I was not prepared, and he refused my first 
request so decidedly that I dared not urge it. “ Henceforth, 
Anna,” said he, “ you will move in a different sphere of life ; 
and, though it is possible that you may have the power of 
showing favour to your relations from time to time, yet 
much or familiar intercourse will be undesirable, and is what 
I cannot allow.” I felt almost afraid, after this formal 
speech, of asking my father and Fritz to come and see me ; 
but, when the agony of bidding them farewell overcame all 

313 


The Grey Woman 

my prudence, I did beg them to pay me a visit ere long. 
But they shook their heads, and spoke of business at home, 
of different kinds of life, of my being a Frenchwoman now. 
Only my father broke out at last with a blessing, and said, 
“ If my child is unhappy — which God forbid — let her remem- 
ber that her father’s house is ever open to her.” I was on 
the point of crying out, “ Oh, then take me there now, my 
father ! oh, my father ! ” when I felt, rather than saw, my 
husband present near me. He looked on with a slightly con- 
temptuous air ; and, taking my hand in his, he led me weep- 
ing away, saying that short farewells were always the best 
when they were inevitable. 

It took us two days to reach his chateau in the Vosges, 
for the roads were bad and the way difficult to ascertain. 
Nothing could be more devoted than he was all the time of 
the journey. It seemed as if he were trying in every way to 
make up for the separation which every hour made me feel 
the more complete between my present and my former life. 
I seemed as if I were only now wakening up to a full sense 
of what marriage was, and I dare say I was not a cheerful 
companion on the tedious journey. At length, jealousy of 
my regret for my father and brother got the better of M. de 
la Tourelle, and he became so much displeased with me that 
I thought my heart would break with the sense of desolation. 
So it was in no cheerful frame of mind that we approached 
Les Eochers, and I thought that perhaps it was because I 
was so unhappy that the place looked so dreary. On one 
side, the chateau looked like a raw new building, hastily run 
up for some immediate purpose, without any growth of trees 
or underwood near it, only the remains of the stone used for 
building, not yet cleared away from the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, although weeds and lichens had been suffered to 
grow near and over the heaps of rubbish ; on the other, were 
the great rocks from which the place took its name, and 
rising close against them, as if almost a natural formation, 
was the old castle, whose building dated many centuries 
back. 


314 


The Grey Woman 

It was not large nor grand, but it was strong and pic- 
turesque, and I used to wish that we lived in it rather than 
in the smart, half-furnished apartment in the new edifice, 
which had been hastily got ready for my reception. Incon- 
gruous as the two parts were, they were joined into a whole 
by means of intricate passages and unexpected doors, the 
exact positions of which I never fully understood. M. de la 
Tourelle led me to a suite of rooms set apart for me, and 
formally installed me in them, as in a domain of which I was 
sovereign. He apologised for the hasty preparation which 
was all he had been able to make for me, but promised, 
before I asked, or even thought of complaining, that they 
should be made as luxurious as heart could wish before many 
weeks had elapsed. But when, in the gloom of an autumnal 
evening, I caught my own face and figure reflected in all the 
mirrors, which showed only a mysterious background in 
the dim light of the many candles that failed to illuminate 
the great proportions of the half-fumished salon, I clung to 
M. de la Tourelle, and begged to be taken to the rooms he 
had occupied before his marriage, he seemed angry with me ; 
although he affected to laugh, and so decidedly put aside the 
notion of my having any other rooms than these, that I 
trembled in silence at the fantastic figures and shapes which 
my imagination called up as peopling the background of 
those gloomy mirrors. There was my boudoir, a httle less 
dreary, and my bedroom, with its grand and tarnished furni- 
ture, which I commonly made into my sitting-room, locking 
up the various doors which led into the boudoir, the salon, 
the passages— all but one, through which M. de la Tourelle 
always entered from his own apartments in the older part of 
the castle. But this preference of mine for occupying my 
bedroom annoyed M. de la Tourelle, I am sure, though he 
did not care to express his displeasure. He would always 
allure me back into the salon, which I disliked more and more, 
because of its complete separation from the rest of the build- 
ing by the long passage into which all the doors of my apart- 
ment opened. This passage was closed by heavy doors and 

315 


The Grey Woman 

portieres, through which I could not hear a sound from the 
other parts of the house ; and, of course, the servants could 
not hear any movement or cry of mine, unless expressly sum- 
moned. To a girl brought up, as I had been, in a household 
where every individual lived all day in the sight of every 
other member of the family, never wanting either cheerful 
words or the sense of silent companionship, this grand isola- 
tion of mine was very formidable ; and the more so, because 
M. de la Tourelle, as landed proprietor, sportsman, and what 
not, was generally out of doors the greater part of every day, 
and sometimes for two or three days at a time. I had no 
pride to keep me from associating with the domestics ; it 
would have been natural to me in man3" ways to have sought 
them out for a word of sympathy in those dreary days when 
I was left so entirely to myself, had they been like our kindly 
German servants. But I disliked them, one and all ; I could 
not tell why. Some were civil, but there was a familiarity 
in their civility which repelled me ; others were rude, and 
treated me more as if I were an intruder than their master’s 
chosen wife ; and yet of the two sets I liked these last the 
best. 

The principal male servant belonged to this latter class. 
I was very much afraid of him, he had such an air of sus- 
picious surliness about him in all he did for me ; and yet 
M. de la Tourelle spoke of him as most valuable and faithful. 
Indeed, it sometimes struck me that Lefebvre ruled his 
master in some things ; and this I could not make out. 
For, while M. de la Tourelle behaved towards me as if I were 
some precious toy or idol, to be cherished, and fostered, and 
petted, and indulged, I soon found out how little I, or, appa- 
rently, any one else, could bend the terrible will of the man 
who had on first acquaintance appeared to me too effeminate 
and languid to exert his will in the slightest particular. I 
had learnt to know his face better now ; and to see that some 
vehement depth of feeling, the cause of which I could not 
fathom, made his grey eye glitter with pale light, and his lips 
contract, and his delicate cheek whiten on certain occasions. 

316 


The Grey Woman 

But all had besn so open and above-board at borne, that 
I had no experience to help me to unravel any mysteries 
among those who lived under the same roof. I understood 
that I had made what Madame Eupprecht and her set would 
have called a great marriage, because I lived in a chateau 
with many servants, bound ostensibly to obey me as a mis- 
tress. I understood that M. de la Tourelle was fond enough 
of me in his way — proud of my beauty, I dare say (for he 
often enough spoke about it to me) — but he was also jealous, 
and suspicious, and uninfluenced by my wishes, unless they 
tallied with his own. I felt, at this time, as if I could have 
been fond of him, too, if he would have let me ; but I was 
timid from my childhood, and, before long, my dread of his 
displeasure (coming down like thunder into the midst of 
his love, for such slight causes as a hesitation in reply, a 
wrong word, or a sigh for my father) conquered my natural 
inclination to love one who was so handsome, so accom- 
plished, so indulgent and devoted. But if I could not please 
him when indeed I loved him, you may imagine how often 
I did wrong when I was so much afraid of him as to quietly 
avoid his company, for fear of his outbursts of passion. One 
thing I remember noticing : that, the more M. de la Tourelle 
was displeased with me, the more Lefebvre seemed to chuckle; 
and, when I was restored to favour, sometimes on as sudden 
an impulse as that which occasioned my disgrace, Lefebvre 
would look askance at me with his cold, mahcious eyes ; and 
once or twice at such times he spoke most disrespectfully to 
M. de la Tourelle. 

I have almost forgotten to say that, in the early days 
of my life at Les Eochers, M. de la Tourelle, in contemp- 
tuous indulgent pity at my weakness in disliking the dreary 
grandeur of the salon, wrote up to the milliner in Paris from 
whom my corheille de mariage had come, to desire her to look 
out for me a maid of middle age, experienced in the toilette, 
and with so much refinement that she might on occasion 
serve as companion to me. 


317 


The Grey Woman 


POETION II 

A Norman woman, Amante by name, was sent to Les 
Eochers by the Paris milliner, to become my maid. She 
was tall and handsome, though upwards of forty, and some- 
what gaunt. But, on first seeing her, I liked her ; she was 
neither rude nor familiar in her manners, and had a pleasant 
look of straightforwardness about her that I had missed in 
all the inhabitants of the chateau, and had foolishly set down 
in my own mind as a national want. Amante was directed 
by M. de la Tourelle to sit in my boudoir, and to be always 
within call. He also gave her many instructions as to her 
duties in matters which, perhaps, strictly belonged to my 
department of management. But I was young and inex- 
perienced, and thankful to be spared any responsibility. 

I dare say it was true what M. de la Tourelle said — 
before many weeks had elapsed — that, for a great lady, a 
lady of a castle, I became sadly too familiar "with my Norman 
waiting- maid. But you know that by birth we were not 
very far apart in rank : Amante was the daughter of a 
Norman farmer, I, of a German miller; and, besides that, 
my life was so lonely ! It almost seemed as if I could not 
please my husband. He had written for some one capable 
of being my companion at times, and now he was jealous of 
my free regard for her — angry, because I could sometimes 
laugh at her original turns of speech and amusing proverbs, 
while, when with him, I was too much frightened to smile. 

From time to time, families from a distance of some 
leagues drove through the bad roads in their heavy carriages 
to pay us a visit ; and there was an occasional talk of our 
going to Paris when public affairs should be a httle more 
settled. These little events and plans were the only varia- 
tions in my life for the first twelve months, if I except the 
alternations in M. de la Tourelle’s temper, his unreasonable 
anger, and bis passionate fondness. 


The Grey Woman 

Perhaps one of the reasons that made me take pleasure 
and comfort in Amante’s society was, that whereas I was 
afraid of everybody (I do not think I was half as much 
afraid of things as of persons), Amante feared no one. She 
would quietly beard Lefebvre, and he respected her all the 
more for it ; she had a knack of putting questions to M. de 
la Tourelle, which respectfully informed him that she had 
detected the weak point, but forbore to press him too closely 
upon it out of deference to his position as her master. And, 
with all her shrewdness to others, she had quite tender ways 
with me ; all the more so at this time because she knew, 
what I had not yet ventured to tell M. de la Tourelle, that 
by-and-by I might become a mother — that wonderful object 
of mysterious interest to single women, who no longer hope 
to enjoy such blessedness themselves. 

It was once more autumn ; late in October. But I was 
reconciled to my habitation ; the walls of the new part of 
the building no longer looked bare and desolate ; the debris 
had been so far cleared away by M. de la Tourelle’ s desire 
as to make me a little flower-garden, in which I tried to 
cultivate those plants that I remembered as growing at 
home. Amante and I had moved the furniture in the rooms, 
and adjusted it to our liking; my husband had ordered 
many an article from time to time that he thought would 
give me pleasure ; and I was becoming tame to my apparent 
imprisonment in a certain part of the great building, the 
whole of which I had never yet explored. It was October, 
as I say, once more. The days were lovely, though short in 
duration, and M. de la Tourelle had occasion, so he said, to 
go to that distant estate, the superintendence of which so 
frequently took him away from home. He took Lefebvre 
with him, and possibly some more of the lacqueys ; he often 
did. And my spirits rose a little at the thought of his 
absence ; and then the new sensation that he was the father 
of my unborn babe came over me, and I tried to invest him 
with this fresh character. I tried to believe that it was 
his passionate love for me that made him so jealous and 

319 


The Grey Woman 

tyrannical ; imposing, as he did, restrictions on my very cor- 
respondence with my dear father, from whom I was so entirely 
separated, as far as personal intercourse was concerned. 

I had, it is true, let myself go into a sorrowful review of 
all the troubles which lay hidden beneath the seeming luxury 
of my Hfe. I knew that no one cared for me, except my 
husband and Amante ; for it was clear enough to see that I, 
as his wife, and also as a parvenue, was not popular among 
the few neighbours who surrounded us ; and, as for the 
servants, the women were all hard and impudent-looking, 
treating me with a semblance of respect that had more of 
mockery than reality in it; while the men had a lurking 
kind of fierceness about them, sometimes displayed even to 
M. de la Tourelle, who on his part, it must be confessed, 
was often severe, even to cruelty, in his management of 
them. My husband loved me, I said to myself ; but I said 
it almost in the form of a question. His love was shown 
fitfully, and more in ways calculated to please himself than 
to please me. I felt that for no wish of mine would he 
deviate one tittle from any pre -determined course of action. 
I had learnt the inflexibility of those thin delicate lips; I 
knew how anger would turn his fair complexion to deadly 
white, and bring the cruel light into his pale blue eyes. The 
love I bore to any one seemed to be a reason for his hating 
them, and so I went on pitying myself, one long dreary after- 
noon during that absence of his of which I have spoken ; 
only sometimes remembering to check myself in my murmur- 
ings by thinking of the new unseen link between us, and 
then crying afresh to think how wicked I was. Oh, how 
well I remember that long October evening I Amante came 
in from time to time, talking away to cheer me — talking 
about dress and Paris, and I hardly know what, but from 
time to time looking at me keenly with her friendly dark 
eyes, and with serious interest, too, though all her words 
were about frivolity. At length, she heaped the fire with 
wood, drew the heavy silken curtains close ; for I had been 
anxious hitherto to keep them open, so that I might see the 

320 


The Grey Woman 

pale moon mounting the skies, as I used to see her— the 
same moon — rise from behind the Kaiserstuhl at Heidel- 
berg ; but the sight made me cry, so Amante shut it out. 
She dictated to me, as a nurse does to a child. 

“Now madame must have the little kitten to keep her 
company,” she said, “ while I go and ask Marthon for a cup 
of coffee.” I remember that speech, and the way it roused 
me ; for I did not like Amante to think I wanted amusing by 
a kitten. It might be my petulance, but this speech — such 
as she might have made to a child — annoyed me, and I said 
that I had reason for my lowness of spirits ; meaning that 
they were not of so imaginary a nature that I could be 
diverted from them by the gambols of a kitten. So, though 
I did not choose to tell her all, I told her a part ; and, as I 
spoke, I began to suspect that the good creature knew much 
of what I withheld, and that the little speech about the 
kitten was more thoughtfully kind than it had seemed at 
first. I said that it was so long since I had heard from my 
father ; that he was an old man, and so many things might 
haippen — I might never see him again — and I so seldom 
heard from him or my brother. It was a more complete 
and total separation than I had ever anticipated when I 
married ; and something of my home and of my life previous 
to my marriage I told the good Amante ; for I had not been 
brought up as a great lady, and the sympathy of any human 
being was precious to me. 

Amante listened with interest, and in return told me 
some of the events and sorrows of her own life. Then, 
remembering her purpose, she set out in search of the 
coffee, which ought to have been brought to me an hour 
before ; but, in my husband’s absence, my wishes were but 
seldom attended to, and I never dared to give orders. 

Presently she returned, bringing the coffee and a large 
cake. 

“ See ! ” said she, setting it down. “ Look at my plunder ! 
Madame must eat. Those who eat always laugh. And, 
besides, I have a little news that will please madame.” Then 

321 Y 


The Grey Woman 

she told me that, lying on a table in the great kitchen, there 
was a bundle of letters, come by the courier from Strasburg 
that very afternoon ; that, fresh from her conversation with 
me, she had hastily untied the string that bound them, but had 
only just traced out one that she thought was from Germany, 
when a servant-man came in, and, with the start he gave 
her, she dropped the letters, which he picked up, swearing 
at her for having untied and disarranged them. She told 
him that she believed there was a letter there for her mistress ; 
but he only swore the more, saying that, if there was, it was no 
business of hers, or of his either ; for that he had the strictest 
orders always to take all letters that arrived during his 
master’s absence into the private sitting-room of the latter — 
a room into which I had never entered, although it opened 
out of my husband’s dressing-room. 

I asked Amante if she had not conquered and brought 
me this letter. No, indeed, she replied; it was almost as 
much as her life was worth to live among such a set of 
servants it was only a month ago that Jacques had stabbed 
Valentin for some jesting talk. Had I never missed Valentin 
— that handsome young lad who carried up the wood into 
my salon ? Poor fellow ! he lies dead and cold now, and 
they said in the village he had put an end to himself ; but 
those of the household knew better. Oh! I need not be 
afraid ; Jacques was gone no one knew where ; but with 
such people it was not safe to upbraid or insist. Monsieur 
would be at home the next day, and it would not be long 
to wait. 

But I felt as if I could not exist till the next day without 
the letter. It might be to say that my father was ill, dying 
— he might cry for his daughter from his death-bed! In 
short, there was no end to the thoughts and fancies that 
haunted me. It was of no use for Amante to say that, 
after all, she might be mistaken — that she did not read 
writing well — that she had had but a glimpse of the address ; 
I let my coffee cool, my food all became distasteful, and I 
wrung my hands with impatience to get at the letter, and 

322 


The Grey Woman 

have some news of my dear ones at home. All the time, 
Amante kept her imperturbable good temper ; first reasoning, 
then scolding. At last she said, as if wearied out, that, if 
I would consent to make a good supper, she would see what 
could be done as to our going to monsieur’s room in search 
of the letter, after the servants were all gone to bed. We 
agreed to go together, when all was still, and look over the 
letters ; there could be no harm in that ; and yet, somehow, 
we were such cowards we dared not do it openly and in the 
face of the household. 

Presently my supper came up — partridges, bread, fruits, 
and cream. How well I remember that supper ! We put the 
untouched cake away in a sort of buffet, and poured the cold 
coffee out of the window, in order that the servants might 
not take offence at the apparent fancifulness of sending down 
for food I could not eat. I was so anxious for all to be in 
bed, that I told the footman who served that he need not 
wait to take away the plates and dishes, but might go to bed. 
Long after I thought the house was quiet, Amante, in her 
caution, made me wait. It was past eleven, before we set 
out, with cat-like steps and veiled light, along the passages, 
to go to my husband’s room and steal my own letter, if it 
was indeed there : a fact about which Amante had become 
very uncertain in the progress of our discussion. 

To make you understand my story, I must now try to 
explain to you the plan of the chateau. It had been at one 
time a fortified place of some strength, perched on the 
summit of a rock, which projected from the side of the 
mountain. But additions had been made to the old building 
(which must have borne a strong resemblance to the castles 
overhanging the Ehine) ; and these new buildings were placed 
so as to command a magnificent view, being on the steepest 
side of the rock, from which the mountain fell away, as it 
were, leaving the great plain of France in full survey. The 
ground-plan was something of the shape of three sides of an 
oblong ; my apartments in the modern edifice occupied the 
narrow end, and had this grand prospect. The front of the 

323 


The Grey Woman 

castle was old, and ran parallel to the road far below. In 
this were contained the offices and public rooms of various 
descriptions, into which I never penetrated. The back wing 
(considering the new building, in which my apartments 
were, as the centre) consisted of many rooms, of a dark and 
gloomy character; as the mountain-side shut out much of 
the sun, and heavy pine woods came down within a few 
yards of the windows. Yet on this side — on a projecting 
plateau of the rock — my husband had formed the flower- 
garden of which I have spoken ; for he was a great cultivator 
of flowers in his leisure moments. 

Now, my bedroom was the corner-room of the new build- 
ings, on the part next to the mountain. Hence I could have 
let myself down into the flower-garden by my hands on the 
window-sill on one side, without danger of hurting myself ; 
while the windows at right angles with these looked sheer 
down a descent of a hundred feet at least. Going still 
farther along this wing, you came to the old building ; in 
fact, these two fragments of the ancient castle had for- 
merly been attached by some such connecting apartments 
as my husband had rebuilt. These rooms belonged to 
M. de la Tourelle. His bedroom opened into mine, his 
dressing-room lay beyond; and that was pretty nearly all 
I knew, for the servants, as well as he himself, had a knack 
of turning me back, under some pretence, if ever they found 
me walking about alone, as I was inclined to do, when first 
I came, from a sort of curiosity to see the whole of the place 
of which I found myself mistress. M. de la Tourelle never 
encouraged me to go out alone, either in a carriage or for a 
walk, saying always that the roads were unsafe in those 
disturbed times ; indeed, I have sometimes fancied since 
that the flower-garden, to which the only access from the 
castle was through his rooms, was designed in order to give 
me exercise and employment under his own eye. 

But, to return to that night. I knew, as I have said, 
that M. de la Tourelle’s private room opened out of his 
dressing-room, and this out of his bedroom, which again 

334 


The Grey Woman 

opened into mine, the corner-room. But there were other 
doors into all these rooms, and these doors led into a long 
gallery, lighted by windows, looking into the inner court. I 
do not remember our consulting much about it ; we went 
through my room into my husband’s apartment through the 
dressing-room ; but the door of communication into his study 
was locked — so there was nothing for it but to turn back and 
go by the gallery to the other door. I recollect noticing one 
or two things in these rooms, then seen by me for the first 
time. I remember the sweet perfume that hung in the air, 
the scent-bottles of silver that decked his toilet-table, and 
the whole apparatus for bathing and dressing, more luxurious 
even than those which he had provided for me. But the 
room itself was less splendid in its proportions than mine. 
In truth, the new buildings ended at the entrance to my 
husband’s dressing-room. There were deep window-recesses 
in walls eight or nine feet thick, and even the partitions 
between the chambers were three feet deep; but over all 
these doors or windows there fell thick, heavy draperies, so 
that I should think no one could have heard in one room 
what passed in another. We went back into my room, and 
out into the gallery. We had to shade our candle, from a 
fear that possessed us, I don’t know why, lest some of the 
servants in the opposite wing might trace our progress 
towards the part of the castle unused by any one except my 
husband. Somehow, I had always the feeling that all the 
domestics, except Amante, were spies upon me, and that I 
was trammelled in a web of observation, with unspoken limi- 
tations, extending over all my actions. 

There was a light in the upper room ; we paused, and 
Amante would have again retreated ; but I was chafing under 
the delays. What was the harm of my seeking my father’s 
unopened letter to me in my husband’s study ? I, generally 
the coward, now blamed Amante for her unusual timidity. 
But the truth was, she had far more reason for suspicion as 
to the proceedings of that terrible household than I had ever 
known of. I urged her on, I pressed on myself ; we came 

325 


The Grey Woman 

to the door, locked, but with the key in it ; we turned it, we 
entered; the letters lay on the table, their white oblongs 
catching the light in an instant, and revealing themselves to 
my eager eyes, hungering after the words of love from my 
peaceful, distant home. But, just as I pressed forward to 
examine the letters, the candle which Amante held caught 
in some draught, went out, and we were in darkness. 
Amante proposed that we should carry the letters back to 
my salon, collecting them as well as we could in the dark, 
and returning all but the expected one for me ; but I begged 
her to return to my room, where I kept tinder and flint, and 
to strike a fresh light ; and so she went, and I remained 
alone in the room, of which I could only just distinguish the 
size, and the principal articles of furniture : a large table, 
with a deep, overhanging cloth, in the middle, escritoires 
and other heavy articles against the walls. All this I could 
see as I stood there, my hand on the table close by the 
letters, my face towards the window, which, both from the 
darkness of the wood, growing high up the mountain-side, 
and the faint light of the declining moon, seemed only like 
an oblong of paler, purpler black than the shadowy room. 
How much I remembered from my one instantaneous 
glance before the candle went out, how much I saw as my 
eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I do not know; 
but even now, in my dreams, comes up that room of horror, 
distinct in its profound shadow. Amante could hardly have 
been gone a minute, before I felt an additional gloom before 
the window, and heard soft movements outside — soft, but 
resolute, and continued until the end was accomplished, and 
the window raised. 

In mortal terror of people forcing an entrance at such 
an hour, and in such a manner as to leave no doubt of their 
purpose, I would have turned to fly when first I heard the 
noise ; only that I feared by any quick motion to catch their 
attention, as I also ran the danger of doing by opening the 
door, which was all but closed, and to whose handlings I 
was unaccustomed. Again, quick as lightning, I bethought 

326 


The Grey Woman 

me of the hiding-place between the locked door to my 
husband’s dressing-room and the portiere which covered it ; 
but I gave that up : I felt as if I could not reach it without 
screaming or fainting. So I sank down softly, and crept 
under the table; hidden, as I hoped, by the great, deep 
table-cover, with its heavy fringe. I had not recovered my 
swooning senses fully, and was trying to reassure myself as 
to my being in a place of comparative safety ; for, above all 
things, I dreaded the betrayal of fainting, and struggled 
hard for such courage as I might attain by deadening myself 
to the danger I was in by inflicting intense pain on myself. 
You have often asked me the reason of that mark on my 
hand ; it was where, in my agony, I bit out a piece of flesh 
with my relentless teeth, thankful for the pain, which helped 
to numb my terror. I say, I was but just concealed, when 
I heard the window lifted, and one after another stepped 
over the sill, and stood by me so close, that I could have 
touched their feet. Then they laughed and whispered ; my 
brain swam so that I could not tell the meaning of their 
words ; but I heard my husband’s laughter among the rest — 
low, hissing, scornful — as he kicked something heavy that 
they had dragged in over the floor, and which lay near me : 
so near, that my husband’s kick, in touching it, touched me 
too. I don’t know why — I can’t tell how — but some feeling, 
and not curiosity, prompted me to put out my hand, ever so 
softly, ever so little, and feel in the darkness for what lay 
spurned beside me. I stole my groping palm upon the 
clenched and chilly hand of a corpse ! 

Strange to say, this roused me to instant vividness of 
thought. Till this moment, I had almost forgotten Amante ; 
now, I planned with feverish rapidity how I could give her a 
warning not to return ; or rather, I should say, I tried to 
plan ; for all my projects were utterly futile, as I might have 
seen from the first. I could only hope she could hear the 
voices of those who were now busy in trying to kindle a 
light, swearing awful oaths at the mislaid articles which 
would have enabled them to strike fire. I heard her step 

327 


The Grey Woman 

outside coming nearer and nearer ; I saw from my hiding- 
place the line of light beneath the door more and more dis- 
tinctly ; close to it her footstep paused ; the men inside — at 
the time I thought they had been only two, but I found out 
afterwards there were three — paused in their endeavours, 
and were quite still, as breathless as myself, I suppose. 
Then she slowly pushed the door open with gentle motion, 
to save her flickering candle from being again extinguished. 
For a moment all was still. Then I heard my husband say, 
as he advanced towards her (he wore riding boots, the shape 
of which I knew well, as I could see them in the light) — 

“ Amante, may I ask what brings you here into my 
private room ? ” 

He stood between her and the dead body of a man, from 
which ghastly heap I shrank away as it almost touched me ; 
so close were we all together. I could not tell whether she 
saw it or not ; I could give her no warning, nor make any 
dumb utterance of signs to bid her what to say — if, indeed, 
I knew myself what would be best for her to say. 

Her voice was quite changed when she spoke; quite 
hoarse, and very low ; yet it was steady enough as she said, 
what was the truth, that she had come to look for a letter 
which she believed had arrived for me from Germany. Good, 
brave Amante ! Not a word about me. M. de la Tourelle 
answered with a grim blasphemy and a fearful threat. He 
would have no one prying into his premises ; madame should 
have her letters, if there were any, when he chose to give 
them to her ; if, indeed, he thought it well to give them to 
her at all. As for Amante, this was her first warning, but it 
was also her last ; and, taking the candle out of her hand,, 
he turned her out of the room, his companions discreetly 
making a screen, so as to throw the corpse into deep shadow. 
I heard the key turn in the door after her — if I had ever had 
any thought of escape, it was gone now. I only hoped that 
whatever was to befall me might soon be over, for the tension 
of nerve was growing more than I could bear. The instant she 
could be supposed to be out of hearing, two voices began 

328 


The Grey Woman 

speaking in the most angry terms to my husband, upbraiding 
him for not having detained her, gagged her — nay, one was for 
killing her, saying he had seen her eye fall on the face of the 
dead man, whom he now kicked in his passion. Though the 
form of their speech was as if they were speaking to equals, 
yet in their tone there was something of fear. I am sure 
my husband was their superior, or captain, or somewhat. 
He replied to them, almost as if he were scoffing at them, 
saying it was such an expenditure of labour having to do 
with fools ; that, ten to one, the woman was only telling the 
simple truth, and that she was frightened enough by dis- 
covering her master in his room to be thankful to escape and 
return to her mistress, to whom he could easily explain on 
the morrow how he happened to return in the dead of night. 
But his companions fell to cursing me, and saying that, since 
M. de la Tourelle had been married, he was fit for nothing 
but to dress himself fine and scent himseK with perfume ; 
that, as for me, they could have got him twenty girls prettier, 
and with far more spirit in them. He quietly answered that 
I suited him, and that was enough. All this time they were 
doing something — I could not see what — to the corpse; 
sometimes, they were too busy rifling the dead body, I 
believe, to talk ; again, they let it fall with a heavy, resistless 
thud, and took to quarrelling. They taunted my husband 
with angry vehemence, enraged at his scoffing and scornful 
replies, his mocking laughter. Yes ; holding up his poor dead 
victim, the better to strip him of whatever he wore that was 
valuable, I heard my husband laugh just as he had done 
when exchanging repartees in the little salon of the 
Bupprechts at Carlsruhe. I hated and dreaded him from 
that moment. At length, as if to make an end of the subject, 
he said, with cool determination in his voice — 

“ Now, my good friends, what is the use of all this 
talking, when you know in your hearts that, if I suspected 
my wife of knowing more than I chose of my affairs, she 
would not outlive the day ? Eemember Victorine I Because 
she merely joked about my affairs in an imprudent manner, 

329 


The Grey Woman 

and rejected my advice to keep a prudent tongue — to see 
what she liked, but ask nothing and say nothing — she has 
gone a long journey — longer than to Paris.” 

“But this one is different to her; we knew all that 
Madame Victorine knew, she was such a chatterbox; but 
this one may find out a vast deal, and never breathe a word 
about it, she is so sly. Some fine day, we may have the 
country raised, and the gendarmes down upon us from 
Strasburg, and all owing to your pretty doll, with her 
cunning ways of coming over you.” 

I think this roused M. de la Tourelle a little from his 
contemptuous indifference, for he ground an oath through 
his teeth, and said, “ Feel ! this dagger is sharp, Henri. If 
my wife breathes a word, and I am such a fool as not to 
have stopped her mouth effectually before she can bring 
down gendarmes upon us, just let that good steel find its way 
to my heart. Let her guess but one tittle, let her have but one 
slight suspicion that I am not a ‘ grand proprietaire,' much 
less imagine that I am a chief of Chauffeurs, and she follows 
Victorine on the long journey beyond Paris that very day.” 

“ She’ll outwit you yet ; or I never judged women well. 
Those still, silent ones are the devil. She’ll be off during 
some of your absences, having picked out some secret that 
will break us all on the wheel.” 

“ Bah ! ” said his voice ; and then in a minute he added, 
“ Let her go, if she will ! But, where she goes, I will follow ; 
so don’t cry before you’re hurt.” 

By this time, they had nearly stripped the body ; and the 
conversation turned on what they should do with it. I 
learnt that the dead man was the Sieur de Poissy, a neigh- 
bouring gentleman, whom I had often heard of as hunting 
with my husband. I had never seen him ; but they spoke as 
if he had come upon them while they were robbing some 
Cologne merchant, torturing him after the cruel practice of 
the Chauffeurs, by roasting the feet of their victims, in order 
to compel them to reveal any hidden circumstances con- 
nected with their wealth, of which the Chauffeurs afterwards 

330 


The Grey Woman 

made use ; and this Sieur de Poissy coming doi^uc 
them, and recognising M. de la Tourelle, they had killed 
him, and brought him thither after nightfall. I heard him 
whom I called my husband laugh his little light laugh, as he 
spoke of the way in which the dead body had been strapped 
before one of the riders, in such a way that it appeared to 
any passer-by as if, in truth, the murderer were tenderly 
supporting some sick person. He repeated some mocking 
reply of double meaning, which he himself had given to 
some one who had made inquiry. He enjoyed the play 
upon words, softly applauding his own wit. And, all the 
time, the poor helpless outstretched arms of the dead lay 
close to his dainty boot ! Then another stooped (my heart 
stopped beating), and picked up a letter lying on the ground 
— a letter that had dropped out of M. de Poissy ’s pocket — 
a letter from his wife, full of tender words of endearment 
and pretty babblings of love. This was read aloud, with 
coarse, ribald comments on every sentence, each trying to 
outdo the previous speaker. When they came to some 
pretty words about a sweet Maurice, their Httle child away 
with its mother on some visit, they laughed at M. de la 
Tourelle, and told him that he would be hearing such 
woman’s drivelling some day. Up to that moment, I think, 
I had only feared him ; but his unnatural, half-ferocious reply 
made me hate even more than I dreaded him. But now 
they grew weary of their savage merriment ; the jewels and 
watch had been appraised, the money and papers examined ; 
and apparently there was some necessity for the body being 
interred quietly and before daybreak. They had not dared 
to leave him where he was slain, for fear lest people should 
come and recognise him, and raise the hue and cry upon 
them. For they all along spoke as if it was their constant 
endeavour to keep the immediate neighbourhood of Les 
Eochers in the most orderly and tranquil condition, so as 
never to give cause for visits from the gendarmes. They 
disputed a httle as to whether they should make their way 
into the castle-larder through the gallery, and satisfy their 

331 


The Grey Woman 

hunger before the hasty interment, or afterwards. I listened 
with eager feverish interest, as soon as this meaning of their 
speeches reached my hot and troubled brain ; for, at the time, 
the words they uttered seemed only to stamp themselves 
with terrible force on my memory, so that I could hardly 
keep from repeating them aloud like a dull, miserable, un- 
conscious echo ; but my brain was numb to the sense of 
what they said, unless I myself were named; and then, I 
suppose, some instinct of self-preservation stirred within me, 
and quickened my sense. And how I strained my ears, and 
nerved my hands and limbs, beginning to twitch with con- 
vulsive movements, which I feared might betray me ! I 
gathered every word they spoke, not knowing which pro- 
posal to wish for, but feeling that, whatever was finally 
decided upon, my only chance of escape was drawing near. 
I once feared lest my husband should go to his bedroom 
before I had had that one chance, in which case he would 
most likely have perceived my absence. He said that his 
hands were soiled (I shuddered, for it might be with life- 
blood), and he would go and cleanse them ; but some bitter 
jest turned his purpose, and he left the room with the other 
two — left it by the gallery door. Left me alone in the dark 
with the stiffening corpse ! 

Now, now was my time, if ever ; and yet I could not 
move. It was not my cramped and stiffened joints that 
crippled me ; it was the sensation of that dead man’s close 
presence. I almost fancied — I almost fancy still — I heard 
the arm nearest to me move, lift itself up, as if once more 
imploring, and fall in dead despair. At that fancy — if fancy 
it were — I screamed aloud in mad terror, and the sound of 
my own strange voice broke the spell. I drew myself to the 
side of the table farthest from the corpse, with as much slow 
caution as if I really could have feared the clutch of that 
poor dead arm, powerless for evermore. I softly raised 
myself up, and stood sick and trembling, holding by the 
table, too dizzy to know what to do next. I nearly fainted, 
when a low voice spoke — when Am ante, from the outside of 

332 


The Grey Woman 

the door, whispered, “ Madame ! ” The faithful creature 
had been on the watch ; had heard my scream ; and, having 
seen the three rufi&ans troop along the gallery, down the 
stairs, and across the court to the offices in the other wing 
of the castle, she had stolen to the door of the room in which 
I was. The sound of her voice gave me strength ; I walked 
straight towards it, as one benighted on a dreary moor, 
suddenly perceiving the small steady light which tells of 
human dwellings, takes heart, and steers straight onward. 
Where I was, where that voice was, I knew not ; but go to 
it I must, or die ! The door once opened — I know not by 
which of us — I fell upon her neck, grasping her tight, till 
my hands ached with the tension of their hold. Yet she 
never uttered a word. Only she took me up in her vigorous 
arms, and bore me to my room, and laid me on my bed. I 
do not know more; as soon as I was placed there I lost 
sense; I came to myself with a horrible dread lest my 
husband was by me, with a belief that he was in the room, 
in hiding, waiting to hear my firsli words, watching for the 
least sign of the terrible knowledge I possessed to murder 
me. I dared not breathe quicker; I measured and timed 
each heavy inspiration ; I did not speak, nor move, nor even 
open my eyes, for long after I was in my full, my miserable 
senses. I heard some one treading softly about the room, 
as if with a purpose, not as if for curiosity, or merely to 
beguile the time ; some one passed in and out of the salon ; 
and I still lay quiet, feeling as if death were inevitable, but 
wishing that the agony of death were past. Again faintness 
stole over me ; but, just as I was sinking into the horrible 
feeling of nothingness, I heard Amante’s voice close to me, 
saying — 

“ Drink this, madame, and let us be gone ! All is 
ready.” 

I let her put her arm under my head and raise me, and 
pour something down my throat. All the time, she kept 
talking in a quiet, measured voice, unlike her own, so dry 
and authoritative ; she told me that a suit of her clothes lay 

333 


The Grey Woman 

ready for me ; that she herself was as much disguised as the 
circumstances permitted her to be ; that what provisions I 
had left from my supper were stowed away in her pockets ; 
and so she went on, dwelling on little details of the most 
commonplace description, but never alluding for an instant 
to the fearful cause why flight was necessary. I made no 
inquiry as to how she knew, or what she knew. I never 
asked her either then or afterwards ; I could not bear it — we 
kept our dreadful secret close. But I suppose she must 
have been in the dressing-room adjoining and heard all. 

In fact, I dared not speak even to her, as if there were 
anything beyond the most common event in life in our pre- 
paring thus to leave the house of blood stealth in the dead 
of night. She gave me directions — short, condensed direc- 
tions, without reasons — just as you do to a child; and, hke a 
child, I obeyed her. She went often to the door and hstened ; 
and often, too, she went to the window and looked anxiously 
out. For me, I saw nothing but her, and I dared not let my 
eyes wander from her for a minute ; and I heard nothing in 
the deep midnight silence but her soft movements, and the 
heavy beating of my own heart. At last she took my hand, 
and led me in the dark, through the salon, once more into 
the terrible gallery, where across the black darkness the 
windows admitted pale sheeted ghosts of light upon the floor. 
Clinging to her, I went ; unquestioning — for she was human 
sympathy to me, after the isolation of my unspeakable terror. 
On we went, turning to the left instead of to the right, past 
my suite of sitting-rooms, where the gilding was red with 
blood, into that unknown wing of the castle that fronted the 
main road, lying parallel far below. She guided me along 
the basement passages to which we had now descended, 
until we came to a little open door, through which the air 
blew chill and cold, bringing for the first time a sensation of 
fife to me. The door led into a kind of cellar, through which 
we groped our way to an opening like a window, but which, 
instead of being glazed, was only fenced with iron bars, two 
of which were. .loose, as Amante evidently knew ; for she took 

334 


The Grey Woman 

them out with the ease of one who had performed the action 
often before, and then helped me to follow her out into the 
free, open air. 

We stole round the end of the building, and on turning 
the comer — she first — I felt her hold on me tighten for an 
instant, and the next step I, too, heard distant voices, and 
the blows of a spade upon the heavy soil ; for the night was 
very warm and still. 

We had not spoken a word; we did not speak now. 
Touch was safer and as expressive. She turned down towards 
the high road ; I followed. I did not know the path ; we 
stumbled again and again, and I was much bruised; so* 
doubtless was she ; but bodily pain did me good. At last, 
we were on the plainer path of the high road. 

I had such faith in her that I did not venture to speak, 
even when she paused, as wondering to which hand she 
would turn. But now, for the first time, she spoke — 

“ Which way did you come, when he brought you here 
first?” 

I pointed — I could not speak. 

We turned in the opposite direction ; still going along the 
high road. In about an hour, we struck up to the mountain- 
side, scrambling far up before we even dared to rest ; far up, 
and away again, before day had fully dawned. Then we 
looked about for some place of rest and concealment ; and 
now we dared to speak in whispers. Amante told me that 
she had locked the door of communication between his bed- 
room and mine ; and, as in a dream, I was aware that she 
had also locked and brought away the key of the door 
between the latter and the salon. 

“ He will have been too busy this night to think much 
about you — he will suppose you are asleep — I shall be the 
first to be missed ; but they will only just now be discovering 
our loss.” 

I remember those last words of hers made me pray to go 
on; I felt as if we were losing precious time in thinking 
either of rest or concealment ; but she hardly replied to me, 

335 


The Grey Woman 

SO busy was she in seeking out some hiding-place. At length, 
giving it up in despair, we proceeded onwards a little way ; 
the mountain-side sloped downwards rapidly ; and in the full 
morning light we saw ourselves in a narrow valley, made by 
a stream which forced its way along it. About a mile lower 
down, there rose the pale blue smoke of a village ; a mill- 
wheel was lashing up the water close at hand, though out of 
sight. Keeping under the cover of every sheltering tree or 
bush, we worked our way down past the mill, down to a 
one-arched bridge which doubtless formed part of the road 
between the village and the mill. 

’ “ This will do,” said she ; and we crept under the space ; 
and, climbing a little way up the rough stone-work, we seated 
ourselves on a projecting ledge, and crouched in the deep 
damp shadow. Amante sat a httle above me, and made me 
lay my head on her lap. Then she fed me, and took some 
food herself ; and, opening out her great dark cloak, she 
covered up every light-coloured speck about us ; and thus we 
sat, shivering and shuddering, yet feeling a kind of rest 
through it all, simply from the fact that motion was no 
longer imperative, and that during the daylight our only 
chance of safety was to be still. But the damp shadow in 
which we were sitting was blighting, from the circumstance 
of the sunlight never penetrating there ; and I dreaded lest, 
before night and the time for exertion again came on, I 
should feel illness creeping all over me. To add to our dis- 
comfort, it had rained the whole day long ; and the stream, 
fed by a thousand httle mountain brooklets, began to swell 
into a torrent, rushing over the stones with a perpetual and 
dizzying noise. 

Every now and then I w^as wakened from the painful doze 
into which I continually fell, by a sound of horses’ feet over 
our head : sometimes lumbering heavily as if dragging a 
burden, sometimes ratthng and galloping, and with the 
sharper cry of men’s voices coming cutting through the roar 
of the waters. At length, day fell. We had to drop into 
the stream, which came above our knees as we waded to the 

336 


The Grey Woman 

bank. There we stood, stiff and shivering. Even Amante’s 
courage seemed to fail. 

“ We must pass this night in shelter, somehow,” said she. 
For indeed the rain was coming down pitilessly. I said 
nothing. I thought that surely the end must be death in 
some shape ; and I only hoped that to death might not be 
added the terror of the cruelty of men. In a minute or so, she 
had resolved on her course of action. We went up the stream 
to the mill. The familiar sounds, the scent of the wheat, the 
flour whitening the walls — all reminded me of home, and it 
seemed to me as if I must struggle out of this nightmare and 
waken, and find myself once more a happy girl by the Neckar- 
side. They were long in unbarring the door at which Amante 
had knocked; at length, an old feeble voice inquired who 
was there, and what was sought ? Amante answered shelter 
from the storm for two women ; but the old woman replied, 
with suspicious hesitation, that she was sure it was a man 
who was asking for shelter, and that she could not let us in. 
But at length she satisfied herself, and unbarred the heavy 
door, and admitted us. She was not an unkindly woman ; 
but her thoughts all travelled in one circle, and that was, 
that her master, the miller, had told her on no account to let 
any man into the place during his absence, and that she did 
not know if he would not think two women as bad ; and yet 
that, as we were not men, no one could say she had disobeyed 
him ; for it was a shame to let a dog be out such a night as 
this. Amante, with ready wit, told her to let no one know 
that we had taken shelter there that night, and that then 
her master could not blame her ; and, while she was thus 
enjoining secrecy as the wisest course, with a view to far 
other people than the miller, she was hastily helping me 
take off my wet clothes, and spreading them, as well as the 
brown mantle that had covered us both, before the great 
stove which warmed the room with the effectual heat that 
the old woman’s failing vitality required. All this time the 
poor creature was discussing with herself as to whether she 
had disobeyed orders, in a kind of garrulous way that made 

337 2 


The Grey Woman 

me fear much for her capability of retaining anything secret 
if she was questioned. By-and-by, she wandered away to 
an unnecessary revelation of her master’s whereabouts ; 
gone to help in the search for his landlord, the Sieur de 
Poissy, who lived at the chateau just above, and who had 
not returned from his chase the day before ; so the intendant 
imagined he might have met with some accident, and had 
summoned the neighbours to beat the forest and the hill- 
side. She told us much besides, giving us to understand 
that she would fain meet with a place as housekeeper where 
there were more servants and less to do, as her life here was 
very lonely and dull, especially since her master’s son had 
gone away — gone to the wars. She then took her supper, 
which was evidently apportioned out to her with a sparing 
hand, as, even if the idea had come into her head, she had 
not enough to offer us any. Fortunately, warmth was all 
that we required ; and that, thanks to Amante’s care, was 
returning to our chilled bodies. After supper, the old woman 
grew drowsy ; but she seemed uncomfortable at the idea of 
going to sleep and leaving us still in the house. Indeed, 
she gave us pretty broad hints as to the propriety of our 
going once more out into the bleak and stormy night ; but 
we begged to be allowed to stay under shelter of some kind ; 
and, at last, a bright idea came over her, and she bade us 
mount by a ladder to a kind of loft, which went half over 
the lofty mill-kitchen in which we were sitting. We obeyed 
her — what else could we do ? — and found ourselves in a 
spacious floor, without any safeguard or wall, boarding, or 
raihng, to keep us from falling over into the kitchen, in case 
we went too near the edge. It was, in fact, the store-room 
or garret for the household. There was bedding piled up, 
boxes and chests, mill-sacks, the winter store of apples and 
nuts, bundles of old clothes, broken furniture, and many 
other things. No sooner were we up there, than the old 
woman dragged the ladder, by which we had ascended, away 
with a chuckle, as if she was now secure that we could do 
no mischief, and sat herself down again once more, to doze 

338 


The Grey Woman 

and await her master’s return. We pulled out some bed- 
ding, and gladly laid ourselves down in our dried clothes 
and in some warmth, hoping to have the sleep we so much 
needed to refresh us and prepare us for the next day. But 
I could not sleep, and I was aware, from her breathing, that 
Amante was equally wakeful. We could both see through 
the crevices between the boards that formed the flooring into 
the kitchen below, very partially lighted by the common 
lamp that hung against the wall near the stove, on the 
opposite side to that on which we were. 


POETION III 

Far on in the night there were voices outside reached us in 
our hiding-place; an angry knocking at the door, and we 
saw through the chinks the old woman rouse herself up to 
go and open it for her master, who came in, evidently half 
drunk. To my sick horror, he was followed by Lefebvre, 
apparently as sober and wily as ever. They were talking 
together as they came in, disputing about something; but 
the miller stopped the conversation to swear at the old 
woman for having fallen asleep, and, with tipsy anger, and 
even with blows, drove the poor old creature out of the 
kitchen to bed. Then he and Lefebvre went on talking — 
about the Sieur de Poissy’s disappearance. It seemed that 
Lefebvre had been out all day, along with other of my 
husband’s men, ostensibly assisting in the search ; in all 
probability trying to blind the Sieur de Poissy’s followers by 
putting them on a wrong scent, and also, I fancied, from 
one or two of Lefebvre’s sly questions, combining with this 
the hidden purpose of discovering us. 

Although the miller was tenant and vassal to the Sieur 
de Poissy, he seemed to me to be much more in league with 
the people of M. de la Tourelle. He was evidently aware, 

339 


The Grey Woman 

in part, of the life which Lefehvre and the others led; 
although, again, I do not suppose that he knew or imagined 
one-half of their crimes ; and also, I think, he was seriously 
interested in discovering the fate of his master, Httle sus- 
pecting Lefehvre of murder or violence. He kept talking 
himself, and letting out all sorts of thoughts and opinions ; 
watched by the keen eyes of Lefehvre, gleaming out below 
his shaggy eyebrows. It was evidently not the cue of the 
latter to let out that his master’s wife had escaped from that 
vile and terrible den ; but, though he never breathed a word 
relating to us, not the less was I certain he was thirsting for 
our blood, and lying in wait for us at every turn of events. 
Presently he got up and took his leave; and the miller 
bolted him out, and stumbled off to bed. Then we fell asleep, 
and slept loud and long. 

The next morning, when I awoke, I saw Amante, half 
raised, resting on one hand, and eagerly gazing, with strain- 
ing eyes, into the kitchen below. I looked too, and both 
heard and saw the miller and two of his men eagerly and 
loudly talking about the old woman, who had not appeared 
as usual to make the fire in the stove, and prepare her 
master’s breakfast, and who now, late on in the morning, 
had been found dead in her bed ; whether from the effect of 
her master’s blows the night before, or from natural causes, 
who can tell? The miller’s conscience upbraided him a 
little, I should say ; for he was eagerly declaring his value for 
his housekeeper, and repeating how often she had spoken of 
the happy life she led with him. The men might have had 
their doubts ; but they did not wish to offend the miller, and 
all agreed that the necessary steps should be taken for a 
speedy funeral. And so they went out, leaving us in our 
loft, but so much alone, that, for the first time almost, we 
ventured to speak freely, though still in a hushed voice, 
pausing to listen continually. Amante took a more cheerful 
view of the whole occurrence than I did. She said that, 
had the old woman lived, we should have had to depart that 
morning, and that this quiet departure would have been the 

340 


The Grey Woman 

best thing we could have had to hope for, as, in all proba-’ 
bility, the housekeeper would have told her master of us and 
of our resting-place, and this fact would, sooner or later, 
have been brought to the knowledge of those from whom we 
most desired to keep it concealed ; but that now we had 
time to rest, and a shelter to rest in, during the first hot 
pursuit, which we knew to a fatal certainty was being 
carried on. The remnants of our food, and the stored-up 
fruit, would supply us with provision ; the only thing to be 
feared was, that something might be required from the loft, 
and the miller or some one else mount up in search of it. 
But even then, with a little arrangement of boxes and chests, 
one part might be so kept in shadow that we might yet 
escape observation. All this comforted me a little; but, I 
asked, how were we ever to escape ? The ladder was taken 
away, which was our only means of descent. But Amante 
replied that she could make a sufficient ladder of the rope 
lying coiled among other things, to drop us down the ten 
feet or so — with the advantage of its being portable, so that 
we might carry it away, and thus avoid all betrayal of the 
fact that any one had ever been hidden in the loft. 

During the two days that intervened before we did 
escape, Amante made good use of her time. She looked into 
every box and chest during the man’s absence at his mill ; 
and, finding in one box an old suit of man’s clothes, which 
had probably belonged to the miller’s absent son, she put 
them on to see if they would fit her ; and, when she found 
that they did, she cut her own hair to the shortness of a 
man’s,' made me clip her black eyebrows as close as though 
they had been shaved, and by cutting up old corks into 
pieces such as would go into her cheeks, she altered both 
the shape of her face and her voice to a degree which I 
should not have believed possible. 

All this time I lay like one stunned; my body resting 
and renewing its strength, but I myself in an almost idiotic 
state — else surely I could not have taken the stupid in- 
terest which I remember I did in all Amante’s energetic 

341 


The Grey Woman 

preparations for disguise. I absolutely recollect once the 
feeling of a smile coming over my stiff face, as some new 
exercise of her cleverness proved a success. 

But, towards the second day, she required me, too, to 
exert myself ; and then all my heavy despair returned. I 
let her dye my fair hair and complexion with the decaying 
shells of the stored-up walnuts, I let her blacken my teeth, 
and even voluntarily broke a front-tooth, the better to effect 
my disguise. But, through it all, I had no hope of evading 
my terrible husband. The third night, the funeral was over, 
the drinking ended, the guests gone ; the miller put to bed 
by his men, being too drunk to help himself. They stopped 
a httle while in the kitchen talking and laughing about the 
new housekeeper likely to come ; and they, too, went off 
shutting, but not locking the door. Everything favoured 
us. Amante had tried her ladder on one of the two previous 
nights, and could, hy a dexterous throw from beneath, un- 
fasten it from the hook to which it was fixed, when it had 
served its office; she made up a bundle of worthless old 
clothes, in order that we might the better preserve our 
characters of a travelling pedlar and his wife ; she stuffed a 
hump on her back, she thickened my figure, she left her own 
clothes deep down beneath a heap of others in the chest from 
which she had taken the man’s dress which she wore ; and, 
with a few francs in her pocket — the sole money we had 
either of us had about us when we escaped — we let ourselves 
down the ladder, unhooked it, and passed into the cold dark- 
ness of night again. 

We had discussed the route which it would be well for 
us to take while we lay perdues in our loft. Amante had 
told me then that her reason for inquiring, when we first left 
Les Eochers, by which way I had first been brought to it, 
was to avoid the pursuit which she was sure would first be 
made in the direction of Germany ; but that now she thought 
we might return to that district of country, where my German 
fashion of speaking French would excite least observation. 
I thought that Amante herself had something peculiar in her 

342 


The Grey Woman 

acoent, which I had heard M. de la Tourelle sneer at as 
Norman patois ; but I said not a word beyond agreeing to 
her proposal that we should bend our steps towards Germany. 
Once there we should, I thought, be safe. Alas! I forgot 
the unruly time that was overspreading all Europe, over- 
turning all law, and all the protection which law gives. 

How we wandered — not daring to ask our way — how we 
lived, how we struggled through many a danger and still 
more terrors of danger, I shall not tell you now. I will only 
relate two of our adventures before we reached Frankfort. 
The first, although fatal to an innocent lady, was yet, I 
believe, the cause of my safety ; the second I shall tell you, 
that you may understand why I did not return to my former 
home, as I had hoped to do when we lay in the miller’s loft, 
and I first became capable of groping after an idea of what 
my future life might be. I cannot tell you how much in 
these doubtings and wanderings I became attached to 
Amante. I have sometimes feared since, that I cared for 
her only because she was so necessary to my own safety ; 
but, no ! it was not so ; or not so only or principally. She 
said once, that she was flying for her own life as well as for 
mine ; but we dared not speak much on our danger, or on 
the horrors that had gone before. We planned a little what 
was to be our future course ; but even for that we did not 
look forward long ; how could we, when every day we scarcely 
knew if we should see the sun go down ? For Amante knew 
or conjectured far more than I did of the atrocity of the gang 
to which M. de la Tourelle belonged; and every now and 
then, just as we seemed to be sinking into the calm of 
security, we fell upon traces of a pursuit after us in all 
directions. Once, I remember — we must have been nearly 
three weeks wearily walking through unfrequented ways, 
day after day, not daring to make inquiry as to our where- 
abouts, nor yet to seem purposeless in our wanderings — we 
came to a kind of lonely roadside farrier’s and blacksmith’s. 
I was so tired that Amante declared that, come what might, 
we would stay there all night ; and accordingly she entered 

343 


The Grey Woman 

the house, and boldly announced herself as a travelling tailor, 
ready to do any odd jobs of work that might be required, for 
a night’s lodging and food for himself and wife. She had 
adopted this plan once or twice before, and with good 
success ; for her father had been a tailor in Eouen, and as a 
girl she had often helped him with his work, and knew the 
tailor’s slang and habits, down to the particular whistle and 
cry which in France tells so much to those of a trade. At 
this blacksmith’s, as at most other solitary houses far away 
from a town, there was not only a store of men’s clothes laid 
by as wanting mending when the housewife could afford 
time, but there was a natural craving after news from a 
distance, such news as a wandering tailor is bound to furnish. 
The early November afternoon was closing into evening, as 
we sat down : she cross-legged on the great table in the black- 
smith’s kitchen, drawn close to the window, I close behind 
her, sewing at another part of the same garment, and from 
time to time well scolded by my seeming husband. All at 
once she turned round to speak to me. It was only one 
word, “ Courage ! ” I had seen nothing ; I sat out of the 
light; but I turned sick for an instant, and then I braced 
myself up into a strange strength of endurance, to go through 
I knew not what. 

The blacksmith’s forge was in a shed beside the house, 
and fronting the road. I heard the hammers stop plying 
their continual rhythmical beat. She had seen why they 
ceased. A rider had come up to the forge and dismounted, 
leading his horse in to be re-shod. The broad red light of 
the forge-fire had revealed the face of the rider to Amante ; 
and she apprehended the consequence that really ensued. • 

The rider, after some words with the blacksmith, was 
ushered in by him into the house-place where we sat. 

“ Here, good- wife, a cup of wine and some galette for 
this gentleman ! ” 

“ Anything, anything, madam, that I can eat and drink 
in my hand while my horse is being shod ! I am in haste, 
and must get on to Forbach to-night.” 

344 


The Grey Woman 

The blacksmith’s wife lighted her lamp ; Amante had 
asked her for it five minutes before. How thankful we 
were that she had not more speedily complied with our 
request ! As it was, we sat in dusk shadow, pretending to 
stitch away, but scarcely able to see. The lamp was placed 
on the stove, near which my husband, for it was he, stood 
and warmed himself. By-and-by, he turned round, and 
looked all over the room, taking us in with about the same 
degree of interest as the inanimate furniture. Amante, 
cross-legged, fronting him, stooped over her work, whistling 
softly all the while. He turned again to the stove, im- 
patiently rubbing his hands. He had finished his wine and 
galette, and wanted to be off. 

“ I am in haste, my good woman. Ask thy husband to 
get on more quickly ! I will pay him double, if he makes 
haste.” 

The woman went out to do his bidding; and he once 
more turned round to face us. Amante went on to the 
next part of the tune. He took it up, whistled a second 
for an instant or so, and then, the blacksmith’s wife re-enter- 
ing, he moved towards her, as if to receive her answer the 
more speedily. 

One moment, monsieur — only one moment ! There was 
a nail out of the off-foreshoe, which my husband is replacing ; 
it would delay monsieur again, if that shoe also came off.” 

“ Madame is right,” said he, “ but my haste is urgent. 
If madame knew my reasons, she would pardon my im- 
patience. Once a happy husband, now a deserted and be- 
trayed man, I pursue a wife on whom I lavished all my love, 
but who has abused my confidence, and fled from my house, 
doubtless to some paramour; carrying off with her all the 
jewels and money on which she could lay her hands. It is 
possible madame may have heard or seen something of her ; 
she was accompanied in her flight by a base, profligate 
woman from Paris, whom I, unhappy man, had myself 
engaged for my wife’s waiting-maid, Uttle dreaming what 
corruption I was bringing into my house ! ” 

345 


The Grey Woman 

“ Is it possible ! ” said the good woman, throwing up 
her hands. 

Amante went on whistling a little lower, out of respect 
to the conversation. 

“ However, I am tracing the wicked fugitives ; I am on 
their track” (and the handsome, effeminate face looked as 
ferocious as any demon’s). “ They will not escape me ; but 
every minute is a minute of misery to me, till I meet my 
wife. Madame has sympathy, has she not ? ” 

He drew his face into a hard unnatural smile, and then 
both went out to the forge, as if once more to hasten the 
blacksmith over his work. 

Amante stopped her whistling for one instant. 

“Go on as you are, without change of an eyelid even ; 
in a few minutes he will be gone, and it will be over ! ” 

It was a necessary caution, for I was on the point of 
giving way and throwing myself weakly upon her neck. 
We went on, she whistling and stitching, I making semblance 
to sew. And it was well we did so ; for almost directly he 
came back for his whip, which he had laid down and for- 
gotten ; and again I felt one of those sharp, quick-scanning 
glances sent all round the room and taking in all. 

Then we heard him ride away ; and then — it had been 
long too dark to see well — I dropped my work, and gave 
way to my trembling and shuddering. The blacksmith’s 
wife returned. She was a good creature. Amante told her 
I was cold and weary, and she insisted on my stopping my 
work, and going to sit near the stove; hastening, at the 
same time, her preparations for supper, which, in honour of 
us, and of monsieur’s liberal payment, was to be a little less 
frugal than ordinary. It was well for me that she made me 
taste a httle of the cider-soup she was preparing, or I could 
not have held up, in spite of Amante’s warning look, and 
the remembrance of her frequent exhortations to act reso- 
lutely up to the characters we had assumed, whatever befell. 
To cover my agitation, Amante stopped her whistling, and 
began to talk; and, by the time the blacksmith came in, 

346 


The Grey Woman 

she and the good woman of the house were in full flow. He 
began at once upon the handsome gentleman, who had paid 
him so well; all his sympathy was with him, and both he 
and his wife only wished he might overtake his wicked wife, 
and punish her as she deserved. And then the conversation 
took a turn, not uncommon to those whose lives are quiet 
and monotonous ; every one seemed to vie with each other 
in teUing about some horror ; and the savage and mysterious 
band of robbers called the Chauffeurs, who infested all the 
roads leading to the Ehine, with Schinderhannes at their 
head, furnished many a tale which made the very marrow of 
my bones run cold, and quenched even Amante’s power of 
talking. Her eyes grew large and wild ; her cheeks blanched ; 
and, for once, she sought by her looks help from me. The 
new call upon me roused me. I rose and said, with their 
permission, my husband and I would seek our bed ; for that 
we had travelled far and were early risers. I added that we 
would get up betimes, and finish our piece of work. The 
blacksmith said we should be early birds, if we rose before 
him ; and the good- wife seconded my proposal with kindly 
bustle. One other such story as those they had been relat- 
ing, and I do believe Amante would have fainted. 

As it was, a night’s rest set her up ; we arose and finished 
our work betimes, and shared the plentiful breakfast of the 
family. Then we had to set forth again ; only knowing that 
to Forbach we must not go, yet believing, as was indeed the 
case, that Forbach lay between us and that Germany to 
which we were directing our course. Two days more we 
wandered on, making a round, I suspect, and returning upon 
the road to Forbach, a league or two nearer to that town than 
the blacksmith’s house. But as we never made inquiries I 
hardly knew where we were, when we came one night to a 
small town, with a good large, rambling inn. in the very centre 
of the principal street. We had begun to feel as if there 
were more safety in towns than in the lonehness of the 
country. As we had parted with a ring of mine not many 
days before to a travelling jeweller, who was too glad to 

347 


The Grey Woman 

purchase it far below its real value to make many inquiries as 
to how it came into the possession of a poor working tailor, 
such as Amante seemed to be, we resolved to stay at this inn 
all night, and gather such particulars and information as we 
could, by which to direct our onward course. 

We took our supper in the darkest corner of the salle-a- 
mangeTf having previously bargained for a small bedroom 
across the court, and over the stables. We needed food 
sorely ; but we hurried on our meal from dread of any one 
entering that public room who might recognise us. Just in 
the middle of our meal, the public diligence drove lumbering 
up under the porte codih'e, and disgorged its passengers. 
Most of them turned into the room where we sat, cowering 
and fearful, for the door was opposite to the porter’s lodge, 
and both opened on to the wide -covered entrance from the 
street. Among the passengers came in a young fair-haired 
lady, attended by an elderly French maid. The poor young 
creature tossed her head and shrank away from the common 
room, full of evil smells and promiscuous company, and 
demanded, in German French, to be taken to some private 
apartment. We heard that she and her maid had come in 
the coup4, and, probably from pride, poor young lady ! she 
had avoided all association with her fellow-passengers, thereby 
exciting their dislike and ridicule. All these little pieces of 
hearsay had a significance to us afterwards, though, at the 
time, the only remark made that bore upon the future was 
Amante’s whisper to me, that the young lady’s hair was 
exactly the colour of mine, which she had cut off and burnt 
in the stove in the miller’s kitchen, in one of her descents 
from our hiding-place in the loft. 

As soon as we could, we struck round in the shadow, 
leaving the boisterous and merry fellow-passengers to their 
supper. We crossed the court, borrowed a lantern from the 
ostler, and scrambled up the rude steps to our chamber 
above the stable. There was no door into it ; the entrance 
was the hole into which the ladder fitted. The window 
looked into the court. We were tired and soon fell asleep. 

348 


The Grey Woman 

I was wakened by a noise in the stable below. One instant 
of listening, and I wakened Amante, placing my hand on her 
mouth, to prevent any exclamation in her half-roused state. 
We heard my husband speaking about his horse to the ostler. 
It was his voice. I am sure of it. Amante said so too. 
We durst not move to rise and satisfy ourselves. For five 
minutes or so he went on giving directions. Then he left 
the stable, and, softly stealing to our window, we saw him 
cross the court and re-enter the inn. We consulted as to 
what we should do. We feared to excite remark or sus- 
picion by descending and leaving our chamber, or else imme- 
diate escape was our strongest idea. Then the ostler left the 
stable, locking the door on the outside. 

“ We must try and drop through the window — if indeed 
it is well to go at all,” said Amante. 

With reflection came wisdom. We should excite sus- 
picion by leaving without paying our bill. We were on foot, 
and might easily be pursued. So we sat on our bed’s edge, 
talking and shivering, while from across the court the laughter 
rang merrily, and the company slowly dispersed one by one, 
their fights flitting past the windows, as they went upstairs 
and settled each one to his rest. 

We crept into our bed, holding each other tight, and 
listening to every sound, as if we were traced, and might 
meet our death at any moment. In the dead of night, just 
at the profound stillness preceding the turn into another 
day, we heard a soft, cautious step crossing the yard. The 
key into the stable was turned — some one came into the 
stable — we felt rather than heard him there. A horse started 
a little, and made a restless movement with his feet, then 
whinnied recognition. He who had entered made two or 
three low sounds to the animal, and then led him into the 
court. Amante sprang to the window, with the noiseless 
activity of a cat. She looked out, but dared not speak a 
word. We heard the great door into the street open — a 
pause for mounting, and the horse’s footsteps were lost in 
distance. 


349 


The Grey Woman 

Then Amante came back to me. “It was he! he is 
gone ! ” said she, and once more we lay down, trembling and 
shaking. 

This time, we fell sound asleep. We slept long and late. 
We were wakened by many hurrying feet, and many con- 
fused voices; all the world seemed awake and astir. We 
rose and dressed ourselves ; and, coming down, we looked 
around among the crowd collected in the courtyard, in order 
to assure ourselves he was not there before we left the shelter 
of the stable. 

The instant we were seen, two or three people rushed 
to us. 

“ Have you heard ? — Do you know ? — That poor young 
lady I — oh, come and see ! ” And so we were hurried, almost 
in spite of ourselves, across the court and up the great open 
stairs of the main building of the inn, into a bedchamber 
where lay the beautiful young German lady, so full of grace- 
ful pride the night before, now white and still in death. By 
her stood the French maid, crying and gesticulating. 

“ Oh, Madame ! if you had but suffered me to stay with 
you 1 Oh 1 the baron, what will he say ! ” and so she went 
on. Her state had but just been discovered; it had been 
supposed that she was fatigued, and was sleeping late, until 
a few minutes before. The surgeon of the town had been 
sent for, and the landlord of the inn was trying vainly to 
enforce order until he came, and, from time to time, drinking 
little cups of brandy, and offering them to the guests, who 
were all assembled there, pretty much as the servants were 
doing in the courtyard. 

At last the surgeon came. All fell back, and hung on 
the words that were to fall from his lips. 

“ See ! ” said the landlord. “ This lady came last night 
by the diligence with her maid. Doubtless a great lady, for 
she must have a private sitting-room ” 

“ She was Madame the Baroness de Boeder,’* said the 
French maid. 

— “ And was difficult to please in the matter of supper, 

350 


The Grey Woman 

and a sleeping-room. She went to bed well, though fatigued. 
Her maid left her ” 

“ I begged,” again broke in the maid, “ to be allowed to 
sleep in her room, as we were in a strange inn, of the 
character of which we knew nothing ; but she would not let 
me, my mistress was such a great lady.” 

— “ And slept with my servants,” continued the landlord. 
“ This morning we thought madame was still slumbering ; 
but when eight, nine, ten, and near eleven o’clock came, I 
bade her maid use my pass-key, and enter her room ” 

“ The door was not locked, only closed. And here she 
was found — dead, is she not, monsieur ? — with her face down 
on her pillow, and her beautiful hair all scattered wild ; she 
would never let me tie it up, saying it made her head ache. 
Such hair ! ” said the waiting-maid, lifting up a long golden 
tress, and letting it fall again. 

I remembered Amante’s words the night before, and 
crept close up to her. 

Meanwhile, the doctor was examining the body under- 
neath the bedclothes, which the landlord, until now, had not 
allowed to be disarranged. The surgeon drew out his hand, 
all bathed and stained with blood, and, holding up a short, 
sharp knife, with a piece of paper fastened round it. 

“ Here has been foul play,” he said. “ The deceased lady 
has been murdered. This dagger was aimed straight at her 
heart.” Then, putting on his spectacles, he read the writing 
on the bloody paper, dimmed and horribly obscured as it 
was : — 

“Numebo Un. 

Ainsi les Chauffeurs se vengenV* 

“ Let us go ! ” said I to Amante. “ Oh, let us leave this 
horrible place ! ” 

“ Wait a little,” said she. “ Only a few minutes more ! 
It will be better.” 

Immediately, the voices of all proclaimed their suspicions 
of the cavalier who had arrived last the night before. He 

351 


The Grey Woman 

had, they said, made so many inquiries about the young 
lady whose supercilious conduct all in the salle-a-manger had 
been discussing on his entrance. They were talking about 
her, as we left the room ; he must have come in directly 
afterwards, and not until he had learnt all about her had he 
spoken of the business which necessitated his departure at 
dawn of day, and made his arrangements with both landlord 
and ostler for the possession of the keys of the stable and 
porte cochere. In short, there was no doubt as to the mur- 
derer, even before the arrival of the legal functionary who 
had been sent for by the surgeon; but the word on the 
paper chilled every one with terror. “ Les Chauffeurs” who 
were they ? No one knew ; some of the gang might even 
then be in the room overhearing, and noting down fresh 
objects for vengeance. In Germany, I had heard little of 
this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed to the 
stories related once or twice about them in Carlsruhe than 
one does to tales about ogres. But here, in their very 
haunts, I learnt the full amount of the terror they inspired. 
No one would be legally responsible for any evidence crimi- 
nating the murderer. The public prosecutor shrank from the 
duties of his office. What do I say ? Neither Amante nor 
I, knowing far more of the actual guilt of the man who had 
killed that poor sleeping young lady, durst breathe a word. 
We appeared to be wholly ignorant of everything : we, who 
might have told so much. But how could we ? we were 
broken down with terrific anxiety and fatigue; with the 
knowledge that we, above all, were doomed victims, and 
that the blood, heavily dripping from the bedclothes on to 
the floor, was dripping thus out of the poor dead body 
because, when living, she had been mistaken for me. 

At length, Amante went up to the landlord, and asked 
permission to leave his inn, doing all openly and humbly, so 
as to excite neither ill-will nor suspicion. Indeed, suspicion 
was otherwise directed, and he willingly gave us leave to 
depart. A few days afterwards we were across the Ehine, 
in Germany, making our way towards Frankfort, but still 

352 


The Grey Woman 

keeping our disguises, and Amante still working at her 
trade. 

On the way we met a young man, a wandering journey- 
man from Heidelberg. I knew him, although I did not 
choose that he should know me. I asked him, as carelessly 
as I could, how the old miller was now ? He told me he 
was dead. This realisation of the worst apprehensions 
caused by his long silence shocked me inexpressibly. It 
seemed as though every prop gave way from under me. I 
had been talking to Amante only that very day of the safety 
and comfort of the home that awaited her in my father’s 
house ; of the gratitude which the old man would feel 
towards her ; and of how there, in that peaceful dwelling, far 
away from the terrible land of France, she should find ease 
and security for all the rest of her life. All this I thought I 
had to promise, and even yet more had I looked for, for 
myself. I looked to the unburdening of my heart and con- 
science by telling all I knew to my best and wisest friend, 
I looked to his love as a sure guidance as well as a com- 
forting stay ; and, behold, he had gone away from me for 
ever ! 

I had left the room hastily on hearing of this sad news 
from the Heidelberger. Presently, Amante followed. 

“ Poor madame ! ’’ said she, consoling me to the best of 
her ability. And then she told me by degrees what more 
she had learned respecting my home, about which she knew 
almost as much as I did, from my frequent talks on the 
subject both at Les Eochers and on the dreary, doleful road 
we had come along. She had continued the conversation 
after I left, by asking about my brother and his wife. Of 
course, they lived on at the mill ; but the man said (with 
what truth I know not, but I believed it firmly at the time) 
that Babette had completely got the upper hand of my 
brother, who only saw through her eyes and heard with her 
ears. That there had been much Heidelberg gossip of late 
days about her sudden intimacy with a grand French gentle- 
man who had appeared at the mill — a relation, by marriage 

353 2 A 


The Grey Woman 

— married, in fact, to the miller’s sister, who, by all accounts, 
had behaved abominably and ungratefully. But that was 
no reason for Babette’s extreme and sudden intimacy with 
him, going about everywhere with the French gentleman; 
and, since he left (as the Heidelberger said he knew for a 
fact), corresponding with him constantly. Yet her husband 
saw no harm in it all, seemingly ; though, to be sure, he was 
so out of spirits, what with his father’s death and the news 
of his sister’s infamy, that he hardly knew how to hold up 
his head. 

“ Now,” said Amante, “ all this proves that M. de la 
Tourelle has suspected that you would go back to the nest 
in which you were reared, and that he has been there, and 
found that you have not yet returned ; but probably he still 
imagines that you will do so, and has accordingly engaged 
your sister-in-law as a kind of informant. Madame has said 
that her sister-in-law bore her no extreme good-will; and 
the defamatory story he has got the start of us in spreading 
will not tend to increase the favour in which your sister-in- 
law holds you. No doubt the assassin was retracing his 
steps, when we met him near Forbach ; and, having heard of 
the poor German lady, with her French maid and her pretty 
blonde complexion, he followed her. If madame will still be 
guided by me — and, my child, I beg of you still to trust 
me,” said Amante, breaking out of her respectful formahty 
into the way of talking more natural to those who had 
shared and escaped from common dangers ; more natural, 
too, where the speaker was conscious of a power of protec- 
tion which the other did not possess — “we will go on to 
Frankfort, and lose ourselves, for a time at least, in the 
numbers of people who throng a great town (and you have 
told me that Frankfort is a great town). We will still be 
husband and wife ; we will take a small lodging ; and you 
shall house-keep and live indoors. I, as the rougher and the 
more alert, will continue my father’s trade, and seek work at 
the tailors’ shops.” 

I could think of no better plan ; so we followed this out. 

354 


The Grey Woman 

In a back-street at Frankfort we found two furnished rooms 
to let, on a sixth storey. The one we entered had no light 
from day ; a dingy lamp swung perpetually from the ceiling ; 
and from that, or from the open door leading into the bed- 
room beyond, came our only light. The bed-room was more 
cheerful, but very small. Such as it was, it almost exceeded 
our possible means. The money from the sale of my ring 
was almost exhausted, and Amante was a stranger in the 
place, speaking only French, moreover — and the good 
Germans were hating the French people right heartily. 
However, we succeeded better than our hopes, and even laid 
by a httle against the time of my confinement. I never 
stirred abroad, and saw no one, and Am ante’s want of 
knowledge of German kept her in a state of comparative 
isolation. 

At length my child was bom — my poor, worse than 
fatherless, child. It was a girl, as I had prayed for. I had 
feared lest a boy might have something of the tiger nature 
of its father ; but a girl seemed all my own. And yet not all 
my own, for the faithful Amante’s delight and glory in the 
babe almost exceeded mine ; in outward show it certainly did. 

We had not been able to afford any attendance beyond 
what a neighbouring sage-femme could give; and she came 
frequently, bringing in with her a little store of gossip, and 
wonderful tales culled out of her own experience, every time. 
One day she began to tell me about a great lady, in whose 
service her daughter had lived as scullion, or some such 
thing. Such a beautiful lady ! with such a handsome 
husband ! But grief comes to the palace as well as to the 
garret ; and, why or wherefore no one knew, but somehow, 
the Baron de Boeder must have incurred the vengeance of 
the terrible Chauffeurs ; for not many months ago, as 
madame was going to see her relations in Alsace, she was 
stabbed dead as she lay in bed at some hotel on the road. 
Had I not seen it in the Gazette ? Had I not heard ? Why, 
she had been told that as far off as Lyons there were 
placards offering a heavy reward on the part of the Baron 

355 


The Grey Woman 

de Boeder for information respecting the murderer of his 
wife. But no one could help him ; for all who could bear 
evidence were in such terror of the Chauffeurs ; there were 
hundreds of them, she had been told, rich and poor, great 
gentlemen and peasants, all leagued together by most fright- 
ful oaths to hunt to the death any one who bore witness 
against them ; so that even they who survived the tortures 
to which the Chauffeurs subjected many of the people whom 
they plundered dared not recognise them again — would 
not dare, even did they see them at the bar of a court of 
justice ; for, if one were condemned, were there not hundreds 
sworn to avenge his death ? 

I told all this to Amante ; and we began to fear that if 
M. de la Tourelle, or Lefebvre, or any of the gang at Les 
Eochers, had seen these placards, they would know that the 
poor lady stabbed by the former was the Baroness de Boeder, 
and that they would set forth again in search of me. 

This fresh apprehension told on my health and impeded 
my recovery. We had so little money we could not call in 
a physician, at least not one in established practice. But 
Amante found out a young doctor, for whom indeed she had 
sometimes worked ; and offering to pay him in kind, she 
brought him to see me, her sick wife. He was very gentle 
and thoughtful, though, like ourselves, very poor. But he 
gave much time and consideration to the case, saying once to 
Amante that he saw my constitution had experienced some 
severe shock, from which it was probable that my nerves 
would never entirely recover. By-and-by, I shall name this 
doctor ; and then you will know, better than I can describe, 
his character. 

I grew strong in time — stronger, at least. I was able to 
work a little at home, and to sun myself and my baby at the 
garret-window in the roof. It was all the air I dared to take. 
I constantly wore the disguise I had first set out with ; as 
constantly had I renewed the disfiguring dye which changed 
my hair and complexion. But the perpetual state of terror 
in which I had been during the whole months succeeding my 

356 


The Grey Woman 

escape from Les Rochers made me loathe the idea of ever 
again walking in the open daylight, exposed to the sight and 
recognition of every passer-by. In vain Amante reasoned — 
in vain the doctor urged. Docile in every other thing, in 
this I was obstinate. I would not stir out. One day Amante 
returned from her work, full of news — some of it good, some 
such as to cause us apprehension. The good news was this ; 
the master for whom she worked as journeyman was going 
to send her with some others to a great house at the other 
side of Frankfort, where there were to be private theatricals, 
and where many new dresses and much alteration of old 
ones would be required. The tailors employed were all to stay 
at this house until the day of representation was over, as it 
was at some distance from the town, and no one could tell 
when their work would be ended. But the pay was to be 
proportionately good. 

The other thing she had to say was this : she had that 
day met the travelling jeweller to whom she and I had sold 
my ring. It was rather a peculiar one, given to me by my 
husband ; we had felt at the time that it might be the means 
of tracing us ; but we were penniless and starving, and what 
else could we do ? She had seen that this Frenchman had 
recognised her at the same instant that she did him ; and she 
thought at the same time that there was a gleam of more 
than common intelligence on his face as he did so. This idea 
had been confirmed by his following her for some way on the 
other side of the street ; but she had evaded him with her 
better knowledge of the town, and the increasing darkness of 
the night. Still it was well that she was going to such a 
distance from our dwelling on the next day; and she had 
brought me in a stock of provisions, begging me to keep 
within doors, with a strange kind of fearful oblivion of the 
fact that I had never set foot beyond the threshold of the 
house since I had first entered it — scarce ever ventured down 
the stairs. But, although my poor, my dear, very faithful 
Amante was like one possessed that last night, she spoke 
continually of the dead, which is a bad sign for the living. 

357 


The Grey Woman 

She kissed you — yes ! it was you, my daughter, my darling, 
whom I bore beneath my bosom away from the fearful castle 
of your father — I call him so for the first time, I must call 
him so once again before I have done — Amante kissed you, 
sweet baby! blessed little comforter! as if she never could 
leave off. And then she went away, alive. 

Two days, three days passed away. The third evening I 
was sitting within my bolted doors — you asleep on your 
pillow by my side — when a step came up the stair, and I 
knew it must be for me ; for ours were the topmost rooms. 
Some one knocked ; I held my very breath. But some one 
spoke, and I knew it was the good Doctor Voss. Then I 
crept to the door, and answered. 

“ Are you alone ? ” asked I. 

“ Yes,” said he, in a still lower voice. “ Let me in.” I 
let him in, and he was as alert as I in bolting and barring the 
door. Then he came and whispered to me his doleful tale. 
He had come from the hospital in the opposite quarter of the 
town, the hospital which he visited; he should have been 
with me sooner, but he had feared lest he should be watched. 
He had come from Amante ’s deathbed. Her fears of the 
jeweller were too well founded. She had left the house 
where she was employed that morning, to transact some 
errand connected with her work in the town ; she must have 
been followed, and dogged on her way back through sohtary 
wood-paths, for some of the wood-rangers belonging to the 
great house had found her lying there, stabbed to death, 
but not dead ; with the poniard again plunged through the 
fatal writing — once more, but this time with the word 
“ wn ” underlined, so as to show that the assassin was aware 
of his previous mistake : — 

“ Num^o Un. 

Ainsi les Chauffeurs se vengent.** 

They had carried her to the house, and given her 
restoratives till she had recovered the feeble use of her 
speech. But, oh, faithful, dear friend and sister ! even then 

358 


The Grey Woman 

she remembered me, and refused to tell (what no one else 
among her fellow-workmen knew) where she lived or with 
whom. Life was ebbing away fast, and they had no resource 
but to carry her to the nearest hospital ; where, of course, 
the fact of her sex was made known. Fortunately both for 
her and for me, the doctor in attendance was the very Doctor 
Voss whom we already knew. To him, while awaiting her 
confessor, she told enough to enable him to understand the 
position in which I was left; before the priest had heard 
half her tale, Amante was dead. 

Doctor Voss told me he had made all sorts of detours, 
and waited thus late at night, for fear of being watched and 
followed. But I do not think he was. At any rate, as I 
afterwards learnt from him, the Baron Boeder, on hearing 
of the similitude of this murder with that of his wife in every 
particular, made such a search after the assassins, that, 
although they were not discovered, they were compelled to 
take to flight for the time. 

I can hardly tell you now by what arguments Dr. Voss, 
at first merely my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his 
small modicum, at length persuaded me to become his wife. 
His wife he called it, I called it ; for we went through the 
religious ceremony too much slighted at the time ; and, as we 
were both Lutherans, and M. de la Tourelle had pretended 
to be of the reformed religion, a divorce from the latter 
would have been easily procurable by German law, both 
ecclesiastical and legal, could we have summoned so fearful 
a man into any court. 

The good doctor took me and my child by stealth to his 
modest dwelling ; and there I lived in the same deep retire- 
ment, never seeing the full light of day ; although, when the 
dye had once passed away from my face my husband did 
not wish me to renew it. There was no need ; my yellow 
hair was grey, my complexion was ashen- coloured ; no 
creature could have recognised the fresh- coloured, bright- 
haired young woman of eighteen months before. The few 
people whom I saw knew me only as Madame Voss; a 

359 


The Grey Woman 

widow much older than himself, whom Dr. Voss had secretly 
married. They called me the Grey Woman. 

He made me give you his surname. Till now you have 
known no other father — while he lived, you needed no father’s 
love. Once only, only once more, did the old terror come 
upon me. For some reason, which I forget, I broke through 
my usual custom, and went to the window of my room for 
some purpose, either to shut or to open it. Looking out 
into the street for an instant, I was fascinated by the sight 
of M. de la Tourelle, gay, young, elegant as ever, walking 
along on the opposite side of the street. The noise I had 
made with the window caused him to look up ; he saw me, 
an old grey woman, and he did not recognise me ! Yet it 
was not three years since we had parted, and his eyes were 
keen and dreadful, like those of the lynx. 

I told M. Voss, on his return home, and he tried to 
cheer me; but the shock of seeing M. de la Tourelle had 
been too terrible for me. I was ill for long months after- 
wards. 

Once again I saw him. Dead. He and Lefebvre were 
at last caught ; hunted down by the Baron de Boeder in 
some of their crimes. Dr. Voss had heard of their arrest ; 
their condemnation, their death ; but he never said a word 
to me, until one day he bade me show him that I loved him 
by my obedience and my trust. He took me a long carriage- 
journey, where to I know not, for we never spoke of that 
day again ; I was led through a prison, into a closed court- 
yard, where, decently draped in the last robes of death, con- 
cealing the marks of decapitation, lay M. de la Tourelle, and 
two or three others, whom I had known at Les Kochers. 

After that conviction Dr. Voss tried to persuade me to 
return to a more natural mode of life, and to go out more. 
But although I sometimes complied with his wish, yet the 
old terror was ever strong upon me, and he, seeing what an 
effort it was, gave up urging me at last. 

You know all the rest. How we both mourned bitterly 
the loss of that dear husband and father — for such I will 

360 


The Grey Woman 

call him ever — and as such you must consider him, my child, 
after this one revelation is over. 

Why has it been made ? you ask. For this reason, my 
child. The lover, whom you have only known as M. Lebrun, 
a French artist, told me but yesterday his real name, dropped 
because the bloodthirsty Eepublicans might consider it as 
too aristocratic. It is Maurice de Poissy. 


361 


SIX WEEKS AT HEPPENHEIM 


After I left Oxford, I determined to spend some months in 
travel before settling down in life. My father had left me a fev/ 
thousands, the income arising from which would be enough 
to provide for all the necessary requirements of a lawyer’s 
education, such as lodgings in a quiet part of London, and 
fees in payment to the distinguished barrister with whom I 
was to read ; but there would be small surplus left over for 
luxuries or amusements; and, as I was rather in debt on 
leaving college, since I had forestalled my income, and the 
expenses of my travelling would have to be defrayed out of 
my capital, I determined that they should not exceed fifty 
pounds. As long as that sum would last me I would remain 
abroad ; when it was spent my holiday should be over, and 
I would return and settle down somewhere in the neighbour- 
hood of Eussell Square, in order to be near Mr. ’s 

chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. I had to wait in London for 
one day while my passport was being made out, and I went 
to examine the streets in which I purposed to live ; I had 
picked them out, from studying a map, as desirable, and so 
they were, if judged entirely by my reason ; but their aspect 
was very depressing to one country-bred, and just fresh from 
the beautiful street- architecture of Oxford. The thought of 
living in such a monotonous grey district for years made 
me the more anxious to prolong my holiday by all the 
economy which could eke out my fifty pounds. I thought 
I could make it last for one hundred days at least. I was 
a good walker, and had no very luxurious tastes in the 
matter of accommodation or food ; I had as fair a knowledge 

362 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

of German and French as any untravelled Englishman can 
have ; and I resolved to avoid expensive hotels such as my 
own countrymen frequented. 

I have stated this much about myself, to explain how I 
fell in with the little story that I am going to record, but with 
which I had not much to do — my part in it being httle more 
than that of a sympathising spectator. I had been through 
France into Switzerland, where I had gone beyond my 
strength in the way of walking, and I was on my way home ; 
when one evening I came to the village of Heppenheim, on 
the Bergstrasse. I had strolled about the dirty town of 
Worms all morning, and dined in a filthy hotel ; and after 
that I had crossed the Ehine, and walked through Lorsch to 
Heppenheim. I was unnaturally tired and languid, as I 
dragged myself up the rough-paved and irregular village 
street to the inn recommended to me. It was a large build- 
ing with a green court before it. A cross-looking but 
scrupulously clean hostess received me, and showed me into 
a large room with a dinner-table in it, which, though it might 
have accommodated thirty or forty guests, only stretched 
down half the length of the eating-room. There were 
windows at each end of the room ; two looked to the front 
of the house, on which the evening shadows had already 
fallen; the opposite two were partly doors, opening into a 
large garden full of trained fruit-trees and beds of vegetables, 
amongst which rose-bushes and other flowers seemed to 
grow by permission, not by original intention. There was 
a stove at each end of the room, which, I suspect, had 
originally been divided into two. The door by which I had 
entered was exactly in the middle; and opposite to it was 
another, leading to a great bed-chamber, which my hostess 
showed me as my sleeping quarters for the night. 

If the place had been much less clean and inviting, I 
should have remained there ; I was almost surprised myself 
at my vis inerticB ; once seated in the last warm rays of the 
slanting sun by the garden window, I was disinclined to 
move, or even to speak. My hostess had taken my orders 

363 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

as to my evening-meal, and had left me. The sun went 
down, and I grew shivery. The vast room looked cold and 
bare ; the darkness brought out shadows that perplexed me, 
because I could not fully make out the objects that produced 
them, after dazzling my eyes by gazing out into the crimson 
light. 

Some one came in ; it was the maiden to prepare for my 
supper. She began to lay the cloth at one end of the large 
table. There was a smaller one close by me. I mustered 
up my voice, which seemed a little as if it were getting 
beyond my control, and called to her — 

“ Will you let me have my supper here on this table ? ” 
She came near; the light fell on her while I was in 
shadow. She was a tall young woman, with a fine strong 
figure, a pleasant face, expressive of goodness and sense, and 
with a good deal of comehness about it too, although the fair 
complexion was bronzed and reddened by weather, so as to 
have lost much of its delicacy, and the features, as I had 
afterwards opportunity enough of observing, were anything 
but regular. She had white teeth, however, and well-opened 
blue eyes — grave-looking eyes which had shed tears for past 
sorrow — plenty of light-brown hair, rather elaborately plaited, 
and fastened up by two great silver pins. That was all — 
perhaps more than all — I noticed that first night. She began 
to lay the cloth where I had directed. A shiver passed over 
me ; she looked at me, and then said — 

“ The gentleman is cold ; shall I light the stove ? ” 
Something vexed me — I am not usually so impatient ; it 
was the coming on of serious illness — I did not like to be 
noticed so closely; I believed that food would restore me, 
and I did not want to have my meal delayed, as I feared it 
might be by the lighting of the stove : and most of all I was 
feverishly annoyed by movement. I answered sharply and 
abruptly — 

“ No ; bring supper quickly ; that is all I want." 

Her quiet, sad eyes met mine for a moment ; but I saw 
no change in their expression, as if I had vexed her by my 

364 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

rudeness; her countenance did not for an instant lose its 
look of patient sense; and that is pretty nearly all I can 
remember of Thekla, that first evening at Heppenheim. 

I suppose I ate my supper, or tried to do so, at any rate ; 
and I must have gone to bed, for days after I became con- 
scious of lying there, weak as a new-born babe, and with a 
sense of past pain in all my weary limbs. As is the case in 
recovering from fever, one does not care to connect facts, 
much less to reason upon them ; so, how I came to be lying 
in that strange bed, in that large, half-furnished room, in 
what house that room was, in what town, in what country, 
I did not take the trouble to recall. It was of much more 
consequence to me then to discover what was the well-known 
herb that gave the scent to the clean, coarse sheets in which 
I lay. Gradually I extended my observations, always con- 
fining myself to the present. I must have been well-cared 
for by some one, and that lately too, for the window was 
shaded, so as to prevent the morning-sun from coming in 
upon the bed ; and there was the crackling of fresh wood in 
the great white china stove, which must have been newly 
replenished within a short time. 

By-and-by the door opened slowly. I cannot tell why, 
but my impulse was to shut my eyes as if I were still asleep. 
But I could see through my apparently closed eyelids. In 
came, walking on tip-toe, with a slow care that defeated its 
object, two men. The first was aged from thirty to forty, in 
the dress of a Black-Forest peasant — old-fashioned coat and 
knee-breeches of strong blue cloth, but of a thoroughly good 
quality ; he was followed by an older man, whose dress, of 
more pretension as to cut and colour (it was all black), was, 
nevertheless, as I had often the opportunity of observing 
afterwards, worn threadbare. 

Their first sentences, in whispered German, told me who 
they were: the landlord of the inn where I was laying a 
helpless log, and the village doctor who had been called in. 
The latter felt my pulse, and nodded his head repeatedly in 
approbation. I had instinctively known that I was getting 

365 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

better, and hardly cared for this confirmation ; but it seemed 
to give the truest pleasure to the landlord, who shook the 
hand of the doctor in a pantomime expressive of as much 
thankfulness as if I had been his brother. Some low-spoken 
remarks were made, and then some question was asked, to 
which, apparently, my host was unable to reply. He left 
the room, and in a minute or two returned, followed by 
Thekla, who was questioned by the doctor, and replied with 
a quiet clearness, showing how carefully the details of my 
illness had been observed by her. Then she left the room, 
and, as if every minute had served to restore to my brain its 
power of combining facts, I was suddenly prompted to open 
my eyes, and ask in the best German I could muster what 
day of the month it was ; not that I clearly remembered the 
date of my arrival at Heppenheim, but I knew it was about 
the beginning of September. 

Again the doctor conveyed his sense of extreme satisfac- 
tion in a series of rapid pantomimic nods, and then replied, 
in deliberate but tolerable English, to my great surprise — 

“ It is the 29th of September, my dear sir. You must 
thank the dear God! Your fever has made its course of 
twenty-one days. Now patience and care must be practised. 
The good host and his household will have the care ; you 
must have the patience. If you have relations in England, 
I will do my endeavours to tell them the state of your 
health.” 

“ I have no near relations,” said I, beginning in my weak- 
ness to cry, as I remembered, as if it had been a dream, the 
days when I had father, mother, sister. 

“ Chut, chut ! ” said he ; then, turning to the landlord, 
he told him in German to make Thekla bring me one of her 
good bouillons ; after which I was to have certain medicines, 
and to sleep as undisturbedly as possible. For days, he went 
on, I should require constant watching and careful feeding ; 
every twenty minutes I was to have something, either wine 
or soup, in small quantities. 

A dim notion came into my hazy mind that my previous 
366 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

husbandry of my fifty pounds, by taking long walks and 
scanty diet, would prove in the end very bad economy ; but 
I sank into dozing unconsciousness before I could quite 
follow out my idea. I was roused by the touch of a spoon 
on my lips ; it was Tbekla feeding me. Her sweet, grave 
face bad something approaching to a mother’s look of tender- 
ness upon it, as she gave me spoonful after spoonful with 
gentle patience and dainty care ; and then I fell asleep once 
more. When next I wakened, it was night ; the stove was 
bgbted, and the burning wood made a pleasant crackle, though 
I could only see the outlines and edges of red flame through 
the crevices of the small iron door. The uncurtained window 
on my left looked into the purple solemn night. Turning a 
little, I saw Tbekla sitting near a table, sewing dihgently at 
some great white piece of household work. Every now and 
then, she stopped to snuff the candle ; sometimes she began 
to ply her needle again immediately ; but once or twice she 
let her busy hands lie idly in her lap, and looked into the 
darkness, and thought deeply for a moment or two ; these 
pauses always ended in a kind of sobbing sigh, the sound of 
which seemed to restore her to self-consciousness, and she 
took to her sewing even more diligently than before. Watch- 
ing her had a sort of dreamy interest for me ; this diligence 
of hers was a pleasant contrast to my repose ; it seemed to 
enhance the flavour of my rest. I was too much of an animal 
just then to have my sympathy, or even my curiosity, strongly 
excited by her look of sad remembrance, or by her sighs. 

After a while she gave a little start, looked at a watch 
lying by her on the table, and came, shading the candle by 
her hand, softly to my bedside. When she saw my open 
eyes, she went to a porringer placed at the top of the stove, 
and fed me with soup. She did not speak while doing this. 
I was half aware that she had done it many times since the 
doctor’s visit, although this seemed to be the first time that I 
was fully awake. She passed her arm under the pillow on 
which my head rested, and raised me a very little ; her sup- 
port was as firm as a man’s could have been. Again back 

367 


Six Weeks at Heppenheitn 

to her work, and I to my slumbers, without a word being 
exchanged. 

It was broad daylight when I wakened again ; I could 
see the sunny atmosphere of the garden outside stealing in 
through the nicks at the side of the shawl, hung up to darken 
the room — a shawl which I was sure had not been there 
when I had observed the window in the night. How gently 
my nurse must have moved about, while doing her thought- 
ful act ! 

My breakfast was brought me by the hostess ; she who 
had received me on my first arrival at this hospitable inn. 
She meant to do everything kindly, I am sure ; but a sick- 
room was not her place ; by a thousand little mal-adroitnesses 
she fidgeted me past bearing ; her shoes creaked, her dress 
rustled; she asked me questions about myself which it 
irritated me to answer; she congratulated me on being so 
much better, while I was faint for want of food which she 
delayed giving me, in order to talk. My host had more sense 
in him when he came in, although his shoes creaked as well 
as hers. By this time I was somewhat revived, and could 
talk a little ; besides, it seemed churlish to be longer without 
acknowledging so much kindness received. 

“ I am afraid I have been a great trouble,” said I. “ I can 
only say that I am truly grateful.” 

His good, broad face reddened, and he moved a little 
uneasily. 

“ I don’t see how I could have done otherwise than I — 
than we did,” replied he, in the soft German of the district. 
“ We were all glad enough to do what we could ; I don’t say 
it was a pleasure, because it is our busiest time of year — but 
then,” said he, laughing a little awkwardly, as if he feared 
his expression might have been misunderstood, “ I don’t 
suppose it has been a pleasure to you either, sir, to be laid 
up so far from home.” 

“ No, indeed ! ” 

“ I may as well tell you now, sir, that we had to look 
over your papers and clothes. In the first place, when you 

368 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

were so ill I would fain have let your kinsfolk know, if I 
could have found a clue ; and besides, you needed linen.” 

“ I am wearing a shirt of yours, though,” said I, touch- 
ing my sleeve. 

“ Yes, sir ! ” said he, again reddening a little. “ I told 
Thekla to take the finest out of the chest ; but I am afraid 
you find it coarser than your own.” 

For all answer, I could only lay my weak hand on the 
great brown paw resting on the bed-side. He gave me a 
sudden squeeze in return, that I thought would have crushed 
my bones. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, misinterpreting the 
sudden look of pain which I could not repress ; “ but watch- 
ing a man come out of the shadow of death into life makes 
one feel very friendly towards him.” 

“ No old or true friend that I have had could have done 
more for me than you, and yom’ wife, and Thekla, and the 
good doctor.” 

“I am a widower,” said he, turning round the great 
wedding-ring that decked his third finger. “ My sister keeps 
house for me, and takes care of the children — that is to say, 
she does it with the help of Thekla, the house-maiden. But 
I have other servants,” he continued. “ I am well-to-do, 
the good God be thanked ! I have land, and cattle, and 
vineyards. It will soon be our vintage-time, and then you 
must go and see my grapes as they come into the village. 
I have a ‘ chasse* too, in the Odenwald ; perhaps one day 
you will be strong enough to go and shoot the ‘ cheweuil ’ 
with me.” 

His good, true heart was trying to make me feel like a 
welcome guest. Some time afterwards I learnt from the 
doctor that— my poor fifty pounds being nearly all expended 
— my host and he had been brought to believe in my poverty, 
as the necessary examination of my clothes and papers 
showed so little evidence of wealth. But I myself have but 
little to do with my story; I only name these things, and 
repeat these conversations, to show what a true, kind, honest 

369 2 B 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

man my host was. By the way, I may as well call him by 
his name henceforward, Fritz Muller. The doctor’s name, 
Wiedermann. 

I was tired enough with this interview with Fritz Muller ; 
but when Dr. Wiedermann came he pronounced me to be 
much better; and through the day much the same course 
was pursued as on the previous one : being fed, lying still, 
and sleeping, were my passive and active occupations. It 
was a hot, sunshiny day, and I craved for air. Fresh air 
does not enter into the pharmacopoeia of a German doctor ; 
but somehow I obtained my wish. During the morning- 
hours the window through which the sun streamed — the 
window looking on to the front court — was opened a little ; 
and through it I heard the sounds of active life, which gave 
me pleasure and interest enough. The hen’s cackle, the 
cock’s exultant call, when he had found the treasure of a 
grain of corn, the movements of a tethered donkey, and the 
cooing and whirring of the pigeons which lighted on the 
window-sill, gave me just subjects enough for interest. Now 
and then a cart or carriage drove up — I could hear them 
ascending the rough village street long before they stopped 
at the “ Halbmond,” the village inn. Then there came a 
sound of running and haste in the house ; and Thekla was 
always called for in sharp, imperative tones. I heard little 
children’s footsteps, too, from time to time ; and once there 
must have been some childish accident or hurt, for a shrill, 
plaintive httle voice kept calling out, “ Thekla, Thekla, liebe 
Thekla ! ” Yet, after the first early morning-hours, when 
my hostess attended on my wants, it was always Thekla 
who came to give me my food or my medicine ; who redded 
up my room ; who arranged the degree of light, shifting the 
temporary curtain with the shifting sun: and always as 
quietly and deliberately as though her attendance upon me 
were her sole work. Once or twice, my hostess came into 
the large eating-room (out of which my room opened), and 
called Thekla away from whatever was her occupation in 
my room at the time, in a sharp, injured, imperative whisper. 

370 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

Once I remember it was to say that sheets were wanted for 
some stranger’s bed, and to ask where she, the speaker, 
could have put the keys, in a tone of irritation, as though 
Thekla were responsible for Friiulein Muller’s own forget- 
fulness. 

Night came on ; the sounds of daily life died away into 
silence ; the children’s voices were no more heard ; the 
poultry were all gone to roost ; the beasts of burden to their 
stables ; and travellers were housed. Then Thekla came in 
softly and quietly, and took up her appointed place, after 
she had done all in her power for my comfort. I felt that 
I was in no state to be left all those weary hours which 
intervened between sunset and sunrise; but I did feel 
ashamed that this young woman, who had watched by me 
all the previous night, and, for aught I knew, for many 
nights before, and had worked hard, been run off her legs, as 
English servants would say, all day long, should come and 
take up her care of me again ; and it was with a feeling of 
relief that I saw her head bend forwards, and finally rest on 
her arms, which had fallen on the white piece of sewing 
spread before her on the table. She slept; and I slept. 
When I wakened dawn was stealing into the room, and 
making pale the lamphght. Thekla was standing by the 
stove, where she had been preparing the bouillon I should 
require on wakening. But she did not notice my half-open 
eyes, although her face was turned towards the bed. She 
was reading a letter slowly, as if its words were famihar to her, 
yet as though she were trying afresh to extract some fuller or 
some different meaning from their construction. She folded 
it up softly and slowly, and replaced it in her pocket with the 
quiet movement habitual to her. Then she looked before her ; 
not at me, but at vacancy filled up by memory ; and, as 
the enchanter brought up the scenes and people which she 
saw, but I could not, her eyes filled with tears — tears that 
gathered almost imperceptibly to herself as it would seem — 
for when one large drop fell on her hands (held slightly 
together before her as she stood) she started a little, and 

371 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

brushed her eyes with the back of her hand, and then came 
towards the bed to see if I was awake. If I had not 
witnessed her previous emotion, I could never have guessed 
that she had any hidden sorrow or pain from her manner, 
tranquil, self -restrained as usual. The thought of this letter 
haunted me, especially as more than once I, wakeful or 
watchful during the ensuing nights, either saw it in her 
hands, or suspected that she had been recurring to it, from 
noticing the same sorrowful, dreamy look upon her face 
when she thought herself unobserved. Most likely, every 
one has noticed how inconsistently out of proportion some 
ideas become, when one is shut up in any place without 
change of scene or thought. I really grew quite irritated 
about this letter. If I did not see it, I suspected it lay perdu 
in her pocket. What was in it ? Of course it was a love- 
letter ; but, if so, what was going wrong in the course of her 
love ? I became like a spoilt child in my recovery : every 
one whom I saw for the time being was thinking only of 
me, so it was perhaps no wonder that I became my sole 
object of thought ; and at last the gratification of my 
curiosity about this letter seemed to me a duty that I owed 
to myself. As long as my fidgety inquisitiveness remained 
ungratified, I felt as if I could not get well. But, to do 
myself justice, it was more than inquisitiveness. Thekla 
had tended me with the gentle, thoughtful care of a sister, 
in the midst of her busy life. I could often hear the Frau- 
lein’s sharp voice outside, blaming her for something that 
had gone wrong; but I never heard much from Thekla 
in reply. Her name was called in various tones by different 
people, more frequently than I could count, as if her services 
were in perpetual requisition ; yet I was never neglected, or 
even long uncared-for. The doctor was kind and attentive ; 
my host friendly and really generous ; his sister subdued her 
acerbity of manner, when in my room ; but Thekla was the 
one of all to whom I owed my comforts, if not my life. If 
I could do anything to smooth her path (and a little money 
goes a great way in these primitive parts of Germany), how 

372 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

willingly would I give it 1 So, one night, I began — she was 
no longer needed to watch by my bedside, but she was 
arranging my room before leaving me for the night — 

“ Thekla,” said I, “ you don’t belong to Heppenheim, do 
you?” 

She looked at me, and reddened a little. 

“ No. Why do you ask ? ” 

“You have been so good to me that I cannot help 
wanting to know more about you. I must needs feel 
interested in one who has been by my side through my 
illness as you have. Where do your friends live? Are 
your parents alive ? 

All this time I was driving at the letter! 

“ I was bom at Altenahr. My father is an inn-keeper 
there. He owns the * Golden Stag.’ My mother is dead, 
and he has married again, and has many children.” 

“ And your stepmother is unkind to you ? ” said I, jump- 
ing to a conclusion. 

“ Who said so ? ” asked she, with a shade of indignation 
in her tone. “ She is a right good woman, and makes my 
father a good wife.” 

“ Then why are you here living so far from home ? ” 

Now the look came back to her face which I had seen 
upon it during the night hours when I had watched her by 
stealth I a dimming of the grave frankness of her eyes, a 
light quiver at the corners of her mouth. But all she said 
was, “ It was better.” 

Somehow, I persisted with the wilfulness of an invalid. 
I am half-ashamed of it now. 

“ But why better, Thekla ? Was there ” How 

should I put it ? I stopped a little, and then rushed blind- 
fold at my object : “ Has not that letter which you read so 
often something to do with your being here ? ” 

She fixed me with her serious eyes, till I believe I 
reddened far more than she; and I hastened to pour out, 
incoherently enough, my conviction that she had some secret 
care, and my desire to help her if she was in any trouble. 

373 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

“ You cannot help me,” said she, a little softened by my 
explanation, though some shade of resentment at having 
been thus surreptitiously watched yet lingered in her 
manner. “It is an old story ; a sorrow gone by, past ; at 
least it ought to be, only sometimes I am foolish ” — her 
tones were softening now — “ and it is punishment enough 
that you have seen my folly.” 

“If you had a brother here, Thekla, you would let him give 
you his sympathy if he could not give you his help, and you 
would not blame yourself if you had shown him your sorrow, 
would you ? I tell you again, let me be as a brother to you ! ” 

“ In the first place, sir ” — this “ sir ” was to mark the 
distinction between me and the imaginary brother — “I 
should have been ashamed to have shown even a brother 
my sorrow, which is also my reproach and my disgrace.” 
These were strong words, and I suppose that my face showed 
that I attributed to them a still stronger meaning than they 
warranted ; but honi soit qui mal y pense — for she went on 
dropping her eyes and speaking hurriedly. 

“ My shame and my reproach is this : I have loved a 
man who has not loved me ”— she grasped her hands 
together till the fingers made deep white dents in the rosy 
flesh — “ and I can’t make out whether he ever did, or 
whether he did once and is changed now ; if only he did 
once love me, I could forgive myself.” 

With hasty, trembhng hands she began to re-arrange 
the tisane and medicines for the night on the little table at 
my bed-side. But, having got thus far, I was determined to 
persevere. 

“ Thekla,” said I, “ tell me all about it, as you would to 
your mother, if she were alive ! There are often misunder- 
standings which, never set to rights, make the misery and 
desolation of a lifetime.” 

She did not speak at first. Then she pulled out the 
letter, and said, in a quiet, hopeless tone of voice — 

“ You can read German writing ? Bead that, and see if 
I have any reason for misunderstanding I ” 

374 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

The letter was signed “ Franz Weber,” and dated from 
some small town in Switzerland — I forget what — about a 
month previous to the time when I read it. It began with 
acknowledging the receipt of some money which had 
evidently been requested by the writer, and for which the 
thanks were almost fulsome ; and then, by the quietest 
transition in the world, he went on to consult her as to the 
desirability of his marrying some girl in the place from 
which he wrote, saying that this Anna Somebody was only 
eighteen, and very pretty, and her father a well-to-do shop- 
keeper, and adding, with coarse coxcombry, his belief that he 
was not indifferent to the maiden herself. He wound up 
by saying that, if this marriage did take place, he should 
certainly repay the various sums of money which Thekla 
had lent him at different times. 

I was some time in making out all this. Thekla held the 
candle for me to read it ; held it patiently and steadily, not 
speaking a word till I had folded up the letter again, and 
given it back to her. Then our eyes met. 

“ There is no misunderstanding possible, is there, sir ? ” 
asked she, with a faint smile. 

“ No,” I replied ; “ but you are well rid of such a fellow.” 

She shook her head a little. “ It shows his bad side, 
sir. We have all our bad sides. You must not judge him 
harshly ; at least, I cannot. But then we were brought up 
together.” 

“ At Altenahr ? ” 

“ Yes ; his father kept the other inn, and our parents, 
instead of being rivals, were great friends. Franz is a little 
younger than I, and was a delicate child. I had to take 
him to school, and I used to be so proud of it and of my 
charge ! Then he grew strong, and was the handsomest lad 
in the village. Our fathers used to sit and smoke together, 
and talk of our marriage; and Franz must have heard as 
much as I. Whenever he was in trouble, he would come 
to me for what advice I could give him, and he danced twice 
as often with me as with any other girl at all the dances, 

375 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

and always brought his nosegay to me. Then his father 
wished him to travel, and learn the ways at the great hotels 
on the Ehine before he settled down in Altenahr. You know 
that is the custom in Germany, sir. They go from town to 
town as journeymen, learning something fresh everywhere, 
they say.” 

“ I knew that was done in trades,” I replied. 

“ Oh, yes ; and among inn-keepers, too,” she said. 
“ Most of the waiters at the great hotels in Frankfort, and 
Heidelberg, and Mayence, and I dare say at all the other 
places, are the sons of inn-keepers in small towns, who go 
out into the world to learn new ways, and perhaps to pick 
up a little English and French ; otherwise, they say, they 
should never get on. Franz went off from Altenahr on his 
joumeyings four years ago next May- day, and before he 
went, he brought me back a ring from Bonn, where he 
bought his new clothes. I don’t wear it now; but I have 
got it upstairs, and it comforts me to see something that 
shows me it was not all my silly fancy. I suppose he fell 
among bad people, for he soon began to play for money — 
and then he lost more than he could always pay ; and some- 
times I could help him a little, for we wrote to each other 
from time to time, as we knew each other’s addresses ; for 
the little ones grew around my father’s hearth, and I thought 
that I, too, would go forth into the world and earn my own 
living, so that — well, I will tell the truth — I thought that by 
going into service, I could lay by enough for buying a hand- 
some stock of household-linen, and plenty of pans and 
kettles against — against what will never come to pass now.” 

“ Do the German women buy the pots and kettles, as 
you call them, when they are married ? ” asked I, awkwardly, 
laying hold of a trivial question, to conceal the indignant 
sympathy with her wrongs which I did not like to express. 

“ Oh, yes ; the bride furnishes all that is wanted in the 
kitchen, and all the store of house-linen. If my mother had 
lived, it would have been laid by for me, as she could have 
afforded to buy it ; but my stepmother will have hard enough 

376 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

work to provide for her own four little girls. However,” 
she continued, brightening up, “ I can help her, for now I 
shall never marry ; and my master here is just and liberal, 
and pays me sixty florins a year, which is high wages.” 
(Sixty florins are about five pounds sterling.) “ And now, 
good-night, sir. This cup to the left holds the tisane, that 
to the right the acorn-tea.” She shaded the candle, and 
was leaving the room. I raised myself on my elbow, and 
called her back. 

“ Don’t go on thinking about this man,” said I. ** He 
was not good enough for you. You are much better un- 
married.” 

“ Perhaps so,” she answered gravely. “ But you cannot 
do him justice ; you do not know him.” 

A few minutes after, I heard her soft and cautious return ; 
she had taken her shoes off, and came in her stockinged feet 
up to my bedside, shading the hght with her hand. When 
she saw that my eyes were open, she laid down two letters 
on the table, close by my night-lamp. 

“ Perhaps, some time, sir, you would take the trouble to 
read these letters ; you would then see how noble and clever 
Pranz really is. It is I who ought to be blamed, not he.” 

No more was said that night. 

Some time the next morning I read the letters. They 
were filled with vague, inflated, sentimental descriptions of 
his inner life and feelings ; entirely egotistical, and inter- 
mixed with quotations from second-rate philosophers and 
poets. There was, it must be said, nothing in them offensive 
to good principle or good feeling, however much they might 
be opposed to good taste. I was to go into the next room 
that afternoon, for the first time of leaving my sick chamber. 
All the morning I lay and ruminated. From time to time I 
thought of Thekla and Franz Weber. She was the strong, 
good, helpful character, he the weak and vain ; how strange 
it seemed that she should have cared for one so dissimilar ; 
and then I remembered the various happy marriages, when 
to an outsider it seemed as if one was so inferior to the other 

377 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

that their union would have appeared a subject for despair, 
if it had been looked at prospectively. My host came in, in 
the midst of these meditations, bringing a great flowered 
dressing-gown, lined with flannel, and the embroidered 
smoking-cap which he evidently considered as belonging to 
this Indian-looking robe. They had been his father’s, he 
told me ; and, as he helped me to dress, he went on with his 
communications on small family matters. His inn was 
flourishing ; the numbers increased every year of those who 
came to see the church at Heppenheim — the church which 
was the pride of the place, but which I had never yet seen. 
It was built by the great Kaiser Karl. And there was the 
Castle of Starkenburg, too, which the Abbots of Lorsch had 
often defended, stalwart churchmen as they were, against 
the temporal power of the emperors. And Melibocus was 
not bey6nd a walk either. In fact, it was the work of one 
person to superintend the inn alone ; but he had his farm and 
his vineyards beyond, which of themselves gave him enough 
to do. And his sister was oppressed with the perpetual calls 
made upon her patience and her nerves in an inn ; and 
would rather go back and live at Worms. And his children 
wanted so much looking after. By the time he had placed 
himself in a condition for requiring my full sympathy, I had 
finished my slow toilette, and I had to interrupt his con- 
fidences, and accept the help of his good strong arm to lead 
me into the great eating-room out of which my chamber 
opened, I had a dreamy recollection of the vast apartment. 
But how pleasantly it was changed ! There was the bare 
half of the room, it is true, looking as it had done on that 
first afternoon, sunless and cheerless, with the long, unoccu- 
pied table, and the necessary chairs for the possible visitors.; 
but round the windows that opened on the garden a part of 
the room was enclosed by the household clothes’-horses, 
hung with great pieces of the blue homespun cloth of which 
the dress of the Black Forest peasant is made. This shut-in 
space was warmed by the lighted stove, as well as by the 
lowering rays of the October sun. There was a little round 

378 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

walnut table with some flowers upon it, and a great cushioned 
arm-chair, placed so as to look out upon the garden and the 
hills beyond. I felt sure that this was all Thekla’s arrange- 
ment ; I had rather wondered that I had seen so little of her 
this day. She had come once or twice on necessary errands 
into my room in the morning, but had appeared to be in 
great haste, and had avoided meeting my eye. Even when 
I had returned the letters, which she had intrusted to me 
with so evident a purpose of placing the writer in my good 
opinion, she had never inquired as to how far they had 
answered her design ; she had merely taken them with some 
low word of thanks, and put them hurriedly into her pocket. 
I suppose she shrank from remembering how fully she had 
given me her confidence the night before, now that daylight 
and actual life pressed close around her. Besides, there 
surely never was any one in such constant request as Thekla. 
I did not like this estrangement, though it was the natural 
consequence of my improved health, which would daily make 
me less and less require services which seemed so urgently 
claimed by others. And, moreover, after my host left me — 
I fear I had cut him a little short in the recapitulation of his 
domestic difl&culties, but he was too thorough and good- 
hearted a man to bear malice — I wanted to be amused or 
interested. So I rang my little hand-bell, hoping that Thekla 
would answer it, when I could have fallen into conversation 
with her, without specifying any decided want. Instead of 
Thekla, the Fraulein came, and I had to invent a wish, for I 
could not act as a baby, and say that I wanted my nurse. 
However, the Fraulein was better than no one ; so I asked 
her if I could have some grapes, which had been provided for 
me on every day but this, and which were especially grateful 
to my feverish palate. She was a good, kind woman, although, 
perhaps, her temper was not the best in the world ; and she 
expressed the sincerest regret as she told me that there were 
no more in the house. Like an invalid, I fretted at my wish 
not being granted, and spoke out, 

“But Thekla told me the vintage was not till the 

379 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

fourteenth; and you have a vineyard close beyond the 
garden, on the slope of the hill out there, have you not ? " 
“Yes; and grapes for the gathering. But perhaps the 
gentleman does not know our laws. Until the vintage — the 
day of beginning the vintage is fixed by the Grand Duke, and 
advertised in the public papers — until the vintage, all owners 
of vineyards may only go on two appointed days in every 
week to gather their grapes ; on those two days (Tuesdays 
and Fridays, this year) they must gather enough for the 
wants of their families ; and, if they do not reckon rightly, 
and gather short measure, why, they have to go without. 
And these two last days the ‘ Half-Moon ’ has been besieged 
by visitors, all of whom have asked for grapes. But to- 
morrow the gentleman can have as many as he will ; it is 
the day for gathering them.” 

“ What a strange kind of paternal law ! ” I grumbled out. 
“ Why is it so ordained ? Is it to secure the owners against 
pilfering from their un fenced vineyards ? ” 

“ I am sure I cannot tell,” she replied. “ Country 
people in these villages have strange customs in many 
ways, as I dare say the English gentleman has perceived. 
If he would come to Worms, he would see a different kind 
of life.” 

“ But not a view like this,” I replied, caught by a sudden 
change of light — some cloud passing away from the sun, or 
something. Eight outside of the windows was, as I have so 
often said, the garden. Trained plum-trees with golden 
leaves, great bushes of purple Michaelmas daisies, late- 
flowering roses, apple-trees, partly stripped of their rosy 
fruit, but still with enough left on their boughs to require 
the props set to support the luxuriant burden; to the left 
an arbour covered over with honeysuckle and other sweet- 
smelling creepers — all bounded by a low grey stone wall 
which opened out upon the steep vineyard that stretched up 
the hill beyond, one hill of a series rising higher and higher 
into the purple distance. “ Why is there a rope with a bunch 
of straw tied in it stretched across the opening of the garden 

380 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

into the vineyard? ” I inquired, as my eye suddenly caught 
upon the object. 

“It is the country way of showing that no one must pass 
along that path. To-morrow the gentleman will see it re- 
moved ; and then he shall have the grapes. Now I will go 
and prepare his coffee.” With a curtsey, after the fashion 
of Worms gentility, she withdrew. But an under- servant 
brought me my coffee, and with her I could not exchange a 
word ; she spoke in such an execrable patois. I went to bed 
early, weary and depressed. I must have fallen asleep 
immediately, for I never heard any one come to arrange my 
bed-side table ; yet in the morning I found that every usual 
want or wish of mine had been attended to. 

I was wakened by a tap at my door, and a pretty piping 
child’s voice asking, in broken German, to come in. On 
giving the usual permission, Thekla entered, carrying a great, 
lovely boy of two years old, or thereabouts, who had only his 
little night-shirt on, and was all flushed with sleep. He held 
tight in his hands a great cluster of noble muscatel grapes. 
He seemed hke a little Bacchus, as she carried him towards 
me with an expression of pretty loving pride upon her face, 
as she looked at him. But, when he came close to me — the 
grim, wasted, unshorn — he turned quick away, and hid his 
face in her neck, still grasping tight his bunch of grapes. She 
spoke to him rapidly and softly, coaxing him, as I could tell 
full well, although I could not follow her words ; and in a 
minute or two the httle fellow obeyed her, and turned and 
stretched himself almost to overbalancing out of her arms, 
and half-dropped the fruit on the bed by me. Then he 
clutched at her again, burying his face in her kerchief, and 
fastening his httle fists in her luxuriant hair. 

“ It is my master’s only boy,” said she, disentanghng his 
fingers with quiet patience, only to have them grasp her 
braids afresh. “ He is my little Max, my heart’s delight ; 
only he must not pull so hard. Say his ‘ to-meet-again,’ and 
kiss his hand lovingly, and we will go.” The promise of a 
speedy departure from my dusky room proved irresistible; 

3^1 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

he babbled oufc his Auf Wiederseh'n, and, kissing his chubby 
hand, he was borne away joyful and chattering fast in his 
infantile half-language. I did not see Thekla again until late 
afternoon, when she brought me in my coffee. She was not 
like the same creature as the blooming, cheerful maiden 
whom I had seen in the morning ; she looked wan and care- 
worn, older by several years. 

“ What is the matter, Thekla ? ” said I, with true anxiety 
as to what might have befallen my good, faithful nurse. 

She looked round before answering. “ I have seen him,” 
she said. “ He has been here, and the Fraulein has been so 
angry ! She says she will tell my master. Oh, it has been 
such a day ! ” The poor young woman, who was usually so 
composed and self-restrained, was on the point of bursting 
into tears ; but by a strong effort she checked herself, and 
tried to busy herself with rearranging the white china cup, 
so as to place it more conveniently to my hand. 

“ Come, Thekla,” said I, “ tell me all about it. I have 
heard loud voices talking, and I fancied something had put 
the Fraulein out; and Lottchen looked flurried when she 
brought me my dinner. Is Franz here ? How has he found 
you out? ” 

“ He is here. Yes, I am sure it is he ; but four years 
makes such a difference in a man ; his whole look and manner 
seemed so strange to me; but he knew me at once, and 
called me all the old names which we used to call each other 
when we were children ; and he must needs tell me how it 
had come to pass that he had not married that Swiss Anna. 
He said he had never loved her ; and that now he was going 

home to settle, and he hoped that I would come too, and ” 

There she stopped short. 

And marry him, and live at the inn at Altenahr,” said 
I, smiling to reassure her, though I felt rather disappointed 
about the whole affair. 

“ No,” she replied. “ Old Weber, his father, is dead ; he 
died in debt, and Fran? will have no money. And he was 
always one that needed money. Some are, you know ; and, 

333 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

while I was thinking, and he was standing near me, the 
Fraulein came in ; and — and — I don’t wonder — for poor 
Franz is not a pleasant-looking man nowadays — she was 
very angry, and called me a bold, bad girl, and said she 
could have no such goings on at the ‘ Halbmond,’ but would 
tell my master when he came home from the forest.” 

“ But you could have told her that you were old friends ” 
— I hesitated before saying the word “ lovers ” ; but, after a 
pause, out it came. 

“ Franz might have said so,” she replied, a httle stiffly. 
“ I could not ; but he went off as soon as she bade him. He 
went to the ‘ Adler ’ over the way, only saying he would 
come for my answer to-morrow morning. I think it was 
he that should have told her what we were — neighbour’s 
children and early friends — not have left it all to me. Oh,” 
said she, clasping her hands tight together, “ she will make 
such a story of it to my master ! ” 

“ Never mind,” said I ; “ tell the master I want to see 
him, as soon as he comes in from the forest, and trust me to 
set him right before the Fraulein has the chance to set him 
wrong ! ” 

She looked up at me gratefully, and went away without 
any more words. Presently, the fine burly figure of my 
host stood at the opening to my enclosed sitting-room. He 
was there, three-cornered hat in hand, looking tired and 
heated as a man doe's after a hard day’s work, but as kindly 
and genial as ever ; which is not what every man is who is 
called to business after such a day, before he has had the 
necessary food and rest. 

I had been reflecting a good deal on Thekla’s story; I 
could not quite interpret her manner to-day to my full 
satisfaction; but yet, the love which had grown with her 
growth must assuredly have been called forth by her lover’s 
sudden reappearance ; and I was inclined to give him some 
credit for having broken off an engagement to Swiss Anna, 
which had promised so many worldly advantages; and, 
again, I had considered that, if he was a httle weak and 

383 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

sentimental, it was Thekla who would marry him by her 
own free will, and perhaps she had sense and quiet resolu- 
tion enough for both. So I gave the heads of the Httle 
history I have told you to my good friend and host, adding 
that I should hke to have a man’s opinion of this man ; but 
that, if he were not an absolute good-for-nothing, and, if 
Thekla still loved him, as I believed, I would try and advance 
them the requisite money towards establishing themselves in 
the hereditary inn at Altenahr. 

Such was the romantic ending to Thekla’s sorrows I had 
been planning and brooding over for the last hour. As I 
narrated my tale, and hinted at the possible happy conclusion 
that might be in store, my host’s face changed. The ruddy 
colour faded, and his look became almost stem — certainly 
very grave in expression. It was so unsympathetic, that I 
instinctively cut my words short. When I had done, he 
paused a httle, and then said, “ You would wish me to learn 
all I can respecting this stranger now at the ‘ Adler,’ and 
give you the impression I receive of the fellow.” 

“ Exactly so,” said I. “ I want to leam aU I can about 
him for Thekla’s sake.” 

“ For Thekla’s sake I will do it,” he gravely repeated. 

“ And come to me to-night, even if I am gone to bed ? ” 

“ Not so,” he replied. “ You must give me all the time 
you can in a matter like this.” 

“ But he will come for Thekla’s answer in the morning.” 

“ Before he comes, you shall know all I can leam.” 

I was resting during the fatigues of dressing the next 
day, when my host tapped at my door. He looked graver 
and sterner than I had ever seen him do before. He sat 
down almost before I had begged him to do so. 

“ He is not worthy of her,” he said. “ He drinks brandy 
right hard ; he boasts of his success at play, and ” — here he 
set his teeth hard — “ he boasts of the women who have loved 
him. In a village like this, sir, there are always those who 
spend their evenings in the gardens of the inns ; and this 
man, after he had drank his fill, made no secrets. It needed 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

no spying to find out what he was ; else I should not have 
been the one to do it.” 

“ Thekla must be told of this,” said I. ** She is not the 
woman to love any one whom she cannot respect.” 

Herr Muller laughed a low, bitter laugh, quite unlike 
himself. Then he replied — 

“ As for that matter, sir, you are young ; you have had 
no great experience of women. From what my sister tells 
me, there can be little doubt of Thekla’s feehng towards him. 
She found them standing together by the window — his arm 
round Thekla’s waist, and whispering in her ear; and, to 
do the maiden justice, she is not the one to suffer such 
familiarities from every one. No,” continued he, still in the 
same contemptuous tone, “ you’ll find she will make excuses 
for his faults and vices ; or else, which is perhaps more 
likely, she will not believe your story, though I who tell it 
you can vouch for the truth of every word I say.” He 
turned short away and left the room. Presently I saw his 
stalwart figure in the hillside vineyard, before my windows, 
scaling the steep ascent with long, regular steps, going to 
the forest beyond. I was otherwise occupied than in watch- 
ing his progress during the next hour. At the end of that 
time he re-entered my room, looking heated and slightly 
tired, as if he had been walking fast or labouring hard ; but 
with the cloud off his brows, and the kindly light shining 
once again out of his honest eyes. 

“ I ask your pardon, sir,” he began, “ for troubling you 
afresh. I believe I was possessed by the devil this morning. 
I have been thinking it over. One has, perhaps, no right to 
rule for another person’s happiness. To have such a” — 
here the honest fellow choked^ a little — “ such a woman as 
Thekla to love him ought to raise any man. Besides, I am 
no judge for him or for her. I have found out this morning 
that I love her myself ; and so the end of it is, that if you, 
sir, who are so kind as to interest yourself in the matter, 
and if you think it is really her heart’s desire to marry this 
man — which ought to be his salvation both for earth and 

385 2 C 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

heaven — I shall be very glad to go halves with you in anj^ 
plan for setting them up in the inn at Altenahr ; only allow 
me to see that whatever money we advance is well and 
legally tied up, so that it is secured to her. And be so kind 
as to take no notice of what I have said about my having 
found out that I have loved her. I named it as a kind of 
apology for my hard words this morning, and as a reason 
why I was not a fit judge of what was best.” He had 
hurried on so that I could not have stopped his eager 
speaking, even had I wished to do so ; but I was too much 
interested in the revelation of what was passing in his brave 
tender heart to desire to stop him. Now, however, his rapid 
words tripped each other up, and his speech ended in an 
unconscious sigh. 

“ But,” I said, “ since you were here Thekla has come 
to me, and we have had a long talk. She speaks now as 
openly to me as she would if I were her brother ; with 
sensible frankness, where frankness is wise — with modest 
reticence, where confidence would be unbecoming. She 
came to ask me if I thought it her duty to marry this fellow, 
whose very appearance, changed for the worse, as she says 
it is, since she last saw him four years ago, seems to have 
repelled her.” 

“ She could let him put his arm round her waist yester- 
day,” said Herr Muller, with a return of his morning’s 
surliness. 

And she would marry him now, if she could believe it 
to be her duty. For some reason of his own, this Franz 
Weber has tried to work upon this feeling of hert. He said 
it would be the saving of him.” 

“As if a man had not strength enough in him — a man 
who is good for aught — to save himself, but needed a woman 
to pull him through life ! ” 

“ Nay,” I replied, hardly able to keep from smiling, “ you 
yourself said, not five minutes ago, that her marrying him 
might be his salvation both for earth and heaven.” 

“ That was when I thought she loved the fellow,” he 
386 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

answered quick. “ Now — but what did you say to 

her, sir?” 

“ I told her, what I believe to be as true as gospel, that, 
as she owned she did not love him any longer, now his 
real self had come to displace his remembrance, she would 
be sinning in marrying him — doing evil that possible good 
might come. I was clear myself on this point ; though I 
should have been perplexed how to advise, if her love had 
still continued.” 

And what answer did she make ? ” 

“ She went over the history of their lives. She was 
pleading against her wishes, to satisfy her conscience. She 
said that all along through her childhood she had been his 
strength ; that, while under her personal influence, he had 
been negatively good; away from her, he had fallen into 
mischief ” 

“ Not to say vice,” put in Herr Muller. 

“ And now he came to her penitent, in sorrow, desirous 
of amendment, asking her for the love she seems to have 
considered as tacitly pHghted to him in years gone by ” 

“ And which he has slighted and insulted. I hope you 
told her of his words and conduct last night in the ‘ Adler ’ 
gardens ? ” 

“ No ; I kept myself to the general principle, which, I am 
sure, is a true one. I repeated it in different forms ; for the 
idea of the duty of self-sacrifice had taken strong possession 
of her fancy. Perhaps, if I had* failed in setting her notion 
of her duty in the right aspect, I might have had recourse 
to the statement of facts, which would have pained 
her severely, but would have proved to her how little his 
words of penitence and promises of amendment were to be 
trusted to.” 

** And it ended ? ” 

“ Ended by her being quite convinced that she would be 
doing wrong instead of right, if she married a man whom she 
had entirely ceased to love, and that no real good could come 
from a course of action based on wrong-doing.” - 

3S7 


Six Weeks at Heppenheitn 

“ That is right and true,” he replied, his face broadening 
into happiness again. 

“ But she says she must leave your service, and go 
elsewhere.” 

“ Leave my service she shall ; go elsewhere she shall 
not.” 

“ I cannot tell what you may have the power of inducing 
her to do ; but she seems to me very resolute.” 

“Why? ” said he, firing round at me, as if I had made 
her resolute. 

“ She says your sister spoke to her before the maids of 
the household, and before some of the townspeople, in a 
way that she could not stand; and that you yourself, by 
your manner to her last night, showed how she had lost 
your respect. She added, with her face of pure maidenly 
truth, that he had come into such close contact with her 
only the instant before your sister had entered the room.” 

“ With your leave, sir,” said Herr Muller, turning towards 
the door, “ I will go and set all that right at once.” 

It was easier said than done. When I next saw Thekla, 
her eyes were swollen up with crying ; but she was silent, 
almost defiant towards me. A look of resolute determina- 
tion had settled down upon her face. I learnt afterwards 
that parts of my conversation with Herr Muller had been 
injudiciously quoted by him in the talk he had had with her. 
I thought I would leave her to herself, and wait till she 
unburdened herself of the feelings of unjust resentment 
towards me. But it was days before she spoke to me with 
anything like her former frankness. I had heard all about 
it from my host long before. 

He had gone to her straight on leaving me ; and, like a 
foolish, impetuous lover, had spoken out his mind and his 
wishes to her in the presence of his sister, who, it must 
be remembered, had heard no explanation of the conduct 
which had given her propriety so great a shock the day 
before. Herr Muller thought to reinstate Thekla in his 
sister’s good opinion by giving her in the Fraulein’s very 

3^3 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

presence the highest possible mark of his own love and 
esteem. And there in the kitchen, where the Fraulein was 
deeply engaged in the hot work of making some delicate 
preserve on the stove, and ordering Thekla about with short, 
sharp displeasure in her tones, the master had come in, and, 
possessing himself of the maiden 's hand, had, to her infinite 
surprise — to his sister’s infinite indignation — made her the 
offer of his heart, his wealth, his life ; had begged of her to 
marry him. I could gather from his account that she had 
been in a state of trembling discomfiture at first; she 
had not spoken, but had twisted her hand out of his, and 
had covered her face with her apron. And then the 
Fraulein had burst forth — “ accursed words,” he called her 
speech. Thekla had uncovered her face, to listen — to listen 
to the end — to the passionate recrimination between the 
brother and the sister. And then she had gone up close 
to the angry Fraulein, and had said, quite quietly, but with 
a manner of final determination which had evidently sunk 
deep into her suitor’s heart, and depressed him into hope- 
lessness, that the Fraulein had no need to disturb herself ; 
that on this very day she had been thinking of marrying 
another man, and that her heart was not like a room to let, 
into which as one tenant went out another might enter. 
Nevertheless, she felt the master’s goodness. He had 
always treated her well, from the time when she had entered 
the house as his servant. And she should be sorry to leave 
him ; sorry to leave the children ; very sorry to leave little 
Max ; yes, she should even be sorry to leave the Fraulein, 
who was a good woman, only a little too apt to be hard on 
other women. But she had already been that very day and 
deposited her warning at the police ofi&ce ; the busy time 
would be soon over, and she should be glad to leave their 
service on All Saints’ Day. Then (he thought) she had felt 
inclined to cry, for she suddenly braced herself up, and said, 
yes, she should be very glad ; for somehow, though they 
had been kind to her, she had been very unhappy at Hep- 
penheim ; and she would go back to her home for a time, 

389 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

and see her old father and kind step-mother, and her nursling 
half-sister Ida, and be among her own people again. 

I could see it was this last part that most of all rankled 
in Herr Miiller’s mind. In all probability Franz Weber 
was making his way back to A1 tenahr too ; and the bad 
suspicion would keep welling up, that some lingering feehng 
for her old lover and disgraced playmate was making her so 
resolute to leave and return to Altenahr. 

For some days after this I was the confidant of the 
whole household, except Thekla. She, poor creature, looked 
miserable enough; but the hardy, defiant expression was 
always on her face. Lottchen spoke out freely enough ; her 
place would not be worth having, if Thekla left ; it was 
she who had the head for everything, the patience for every- 
thing; who stood between all the under-servants and the 
Fraulein’s tempers. As for the children, poor motherless 
children ! Lottchen was sure that the master did not know 
what he was doing when he allowed his sister to turn 
Thekla away — and all for what ? for having a lover, as every 
girl had who could get one. Why, the little boy Max slept 
in the room which Lottchen shared with Thekla, and she 
heard him in the night as quickly as if she was his mother ; 
when she had been sitting up with me, when I was so ill, 
Lottchen had had to attend to him, and it was weary work 
after a hard day to have to get up and soothe a teething 
child ; she knew she had been cross enough sometimes ; but 
Thekla was always good and gentle with him, however tired 
she was. And, as Lottchen left the room, I could hear her 
repeating that she thought she should leave when Thekla 
went ; for that her place would not be worth having. 

Even the Fraulein had her word of regret — regret mingled 
with self-justification. She thought she had been quite 
right in speaking to Thekla for allowing such familiarities ; 
how was she to know that the man was an old friend and 
playmate ? He looked like a right profligate good-for- 
nothing. And to have a servant take up her scolding as an 
unpardonable offence, and persist in quitting her place, just 

390 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

when she had learnt all her work, and was so useful in the 
household — so useful that the Fraulein could never put up 
with any fresh, stupid house-maiden ; but, sooner than take 
the trouble of teaching the new servant where everything 
was, and how to give out the stores if she was busy, she 
would go back to Worms. For, after all, house-keeping for 
a brother was thankless work ; there was no satisfying men ; 
and Heppenheim was but a poor ignorant village compared 
to Worms. 

She must have spoken to her brother about her intention 
of leaving him and returning to her former home ; indeed, 
a feeling of coolness had evidently grown up between the 
brother and sister during these latter days. When one 
evening Herr Muller brought in his pipe, and, as his custom 
had sometimes been, sat down by my stove to smoke, he 
looked gloomy and annoyed. I let him puff away, and take 
his own time. At length he began — 

“ I have rid the village of him at last. I could not bear 
to have him here, disgracing Thekla with speaking to her, 
whenever she went to the vineyard or the fountain. I don’t 
believe she likes him a bit.” 

“ No more do I,” I said. He turned on me — 

Then why did she speak to him at aU ? Why cannot 
she like an honest man who likes her ? Why is she so bent 
on going home to Altenahr? ” 

“ She speaks to him, because she has known him from a 
child, and has a faithful pity for one whom she has known 
so innocent, and who is now so lost in all good men’s regard. 
As for not liking an honest man (though I may have my own 
opinion about that), liking goes by fancy, as we say in England; 
and Altenahr is her home ; her father’s house is at Altenahr, 
as you know.” 

** I wonder if he will go there,” quoth Herr Muller, after 
two or three more puffs. “ He was fast at the ‘ Adler * ; he 
could not pay his score ; so he kept on staying here, saying 
that he should receive a letter from a friend with money in a 
day or two ; l3dng in wait, too, for Thekla, who is well-known 

391 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

and respected all through Heppenheim : so his being an old 
friend of hers made him have a kind of standing. I went in 
this morning and paid his score, on condition that he left the 
place this day ; and he left the village as merrily as a cricket, 
caring no more for Thekla than for the Kaiser who built our 
church ; for he never looked back at the ‘ Halbmond/ but 
went whistling down the road.” 

‘ That is a good riddance,” said I. 

“ Yes. But my sister says she must return to Worms. 
And Lottchen has given notice ; she says the place will not 
be worth having, when Thekla leaves. I wish I could give 
notice too.” 

“ Try Thekla again ! ” 

“Not I,” said he, reddening. “ It would seem now as if 
I only wanted her for a housekeeper. Besides, she avoids 
me at every turn, and will not even look at me. I am sure 
she bears me some ill-will about that ne’er-do-weel.” 

There was silence between us for some time, which he at 
length broke. 

“ The pastor has a good and comely daughter. Her 
mother is a famous housewife. They often have asked me 
to come to the parsonage and smoke a pipe. When the 
vintage is over, and I am less busy, I think I will go there 
and look about me.” 

“ When is the vintage ? ” asked I. “ I hope it will take 
place soon, for I am growing so well and strong that I fear I 
must leave you shortly ; but I should hke to see the vintage 
first.” 

“ Oh, never fear ! you must not travel yet awhile ; and 
Government has fixed the grape-gathering to begin on the 
fourteenth.” 

“ What a paternal Government ! How does it know 
when the grapes will be ripe ? Why cannot every man fix 
his own time for gathering his own grapes ? ” 

“ That has never been our way in Germany. There are 
people employed by the Government to examine the vines, 
and report when the grapes are ripe. It i3 necessary to 

392 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

make laws about it; for, as you must have seen, there is 
nothing but the fear of the law to protect our vineyards and 
fruit-trees ; there are no enclosures along the Bergstrasse, 
as you tell me you have in England ; but, as people are only 
allowed to go into the vineyards on stated days, no one, 
under pretence of gathering his own produce, can stray into 
his neighbour’s grounds and help himself, without some of 
the Grand Duke’s foresters seeing him.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ to each country its own laws.” 

I think it was on that very evening that Thekla came in 
for something. She stopped arranging the table-cloth and 
the flowers, as if she had something to say, yet did not know 
how to begin. At length I found that her sore, hot heart 
wanted some sympathy ; her hand was against every one’s, 
and she fancied every one had turned against her. She 
looked up at me, and said, a little abruptly — 

“ Does the gentleman know that I go on the fifteenth ? ” 

“ So soon ? ” said I, with surprise. “ I thought you were 
to remain here till All Saints’ Day.” 

“ So I should have done — so I must have done — if the 
Fraulein had not kindly given me leave to accept of a place 
— a very good place, too — of housekeeper to a widow lady at 
Frankfort. It is just the sort of situation I have always wished 
for. I expect I shall be so happy and comfortable there.” 

“ Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” came into 
my mind. I saw she expected me to doubt the probability 
of her happiness, and was in a defiant mood. 

“ Of course,” said I, “ you would hardly have wished to 
leave Heppenheim, if you had been happy here ; and every 
new place always promises fair, whatever its performance 
may be. But, wherever you go, remember you have always 
a friend in me ! ” 

“ Yes,” she replied, “ I think you are to be trusted. 
Though, from my experience, I should say that of very few 
men.” 

“ You have been unfortunate,” I answered ; “ many men 
would say the same of women.” 

393 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

She thought a moment, and then said, in a changed tone 
of voice, “ The Fraulein here has been much more friendly 
and helpful of these late days than her brother ; yet I have 
served him faithfully, and have cared for his little Max as 
though he were my own brother. But this morning he 
spoke to me for the first time for many days ; he met me in 
the passage, and, suddenly stopping, he said he was glad I 
had met with so comfortable a place, and that I was at full 
liberty to go whenever I liked ; and then he went quickly on, 
never waiting for my answer.” 

“ And what was wrong in that ? It seems to me he was 
trying to make you feel entirely at your ease, to do as you 
thought best, without regard to his own interests.” 

“ Perhaps so. It is silly, I know,” she continued, turn- 
ing full on me her grave, innocent eyes ; ‘ ‘ but one’s vanity 
suffers a little when every one is so willing to part with 
one.” 

“ Thekla ! I owe you a great debt — let me speak to you 
openly! I know that your master wanted to marry you, 
and that you refused him. Do not deceive yourself ! You 
are sorry for that refusal now ? ” 

She kept her serious look fixed upon me ; but her face 
and throat reddened all over. 

“ No,” she said, at length ; “ I am not sorry. What can 
you think I am made of ; having loved one man ever since 
I was a little child until a fortnight ago, and now just as 
ready to love another ? I know you do not rightly consider 
what you say, or I should take it as an insult.” 

“ You loved an ideal man ; he disappointed you, and you 
clung to your remembrance of him. He came, and the 
reality dispelled all illusions.” 

“ I do not understand philosophy,” said she. “ I only 
know that I think that Herr Muller has lost all respect for 
me, from what his sister has told him ; and I know that I 
am going away ; and I trust I shall be happier in Frankfort 
than I have been here of late days.” So saying, she left the 
room. 


394 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

I was wakened up on the morning of the fourteenth by 
the merry ringing of church bells, and the perpetual firing 
and popping off of guns and pistols. But all this was over 
by the time I was up and dressed, and seated at breakfast 
in my partitioned room. It was a perfect October day ; the 
dew not yet off the blades of grass, glistening on the delicate 
gossamer webs, which stretched from flower to flower in the 
garden, lying in the morning-shadow of the house. But 
beyond the garden, on the sunny hill-side, men, women, and 
children were clambering up the vineyards like ants — busy, 
irregular in movement, clustering together, spreading wide 
apart — I could hear the shrill, merry voices as I sat — and 
all along the valley, as far as I could see, it was much the 
same; for every one filled his house for the day of the 
vintage, that great annual festival. Lottchen, who had 
brought in my breakfast, was all in her Sunday best, having 
risen early to get her work done and go abroad to gather 
grapes. Bright colours seemed to abound ; I could see dots 
of scarlet, and crimson, and orange through the fading 
leaves ; it was not a day to languish in the house ; and I 
was on the point of going out by myself, when Herr Muller 
came in to offer me his sturdy arm, to help me in walking 
to the vineyard. We crept through the garden, scented with 
late flowers and sunny fruit— we passed through the gate I 
had so often gazed at from the easy-chair, and were in the 
busy vineyard ; great baskets lay on the grass already piled 
nearly full of purple and yellow grapes. The wine made 
from these was far from pleasant to my taste ; for the best 
Ehine-wine is made from a smaller grape, growing in closer, 
harder clusters ; but the larger and less profitable grape is 
by far the most picturesque in its mode of growth, and far 
the best to eat into the bargain. Wherever we trod, it was 
on fragrant, crushed vine-leaves ; every one we saw had his 
hands and face stained with the purple juice. Presently, I 
sat down on a sunny bit of grass, and my host left me to go 
further afield, to look after the more distant vineyards. I 
watched his progress. After he left me, he took off coat and 

395 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

waistcoat, displaying his snowy shirt and gaily-worked 
braces ; and presently he was as busy as any one. I looked 
down on the village ; the grey and orange and crimson roofs 
lay glowing in the noonday sun. I could see down into the 
streets ; but they were all empty — even the old people came 
toiling up the hill-side to share in the general festivity. 
Lottchen had brought up cold dinners for a regiment of 
men; every one came and helped himself. Thekla was 
there, leading the little Karoline, and helping the toddling 
steps of Max ; but she kept aloof from me ; for I knew, or 
suspected, or had probed, too much. She alone looked sad 
and grave, and spoke so little, even to her friends, that it 
was evident to see that she was trying to wean herself finally 
from the place. But I could see that she had lost her short, 
defiant manner. What she did say was kindly and gently 
spoken. The Fraulein came out late in the morning, dressed, 
I suppose, in the latest Worms fashion — quite different to 
anything I had ever seen before. She came up to me, and 
talked very graciously to me for some time. 

“ Here comes the proprietor (squire) and his lady, and 
their dear children. See, the vintagers have tied bunches of 
the finest grapes on to a stick, heavier than the children, or 
even the lady, can carry. Look ! look ! how he bows ! — one 
can tell he has been an attache at Vienna. That is the Court 
way of bowing there — holding the hat right down before them, 
and bending the back at right angles. How graceful ! And 
here is the doctor ! I thought he would spare time to come 
up here ! Well, doctor, you will go all the more cheerfully to 
your next patient for having been up into the vineyards. 
Nonsense, about grapes making other patients for you ! Ah, 
here is the pastor and his wife, and the Fraulein Anna. Now, 
where is my brother, I wonder? Up in the far vineyard, I 
make no doubt. Herr Pastor, the view up above is far finer 
than what it is here, and the best grapes grow there ; shall I 
accompany you and madame, and the dear Fraulein ? The 
gentleman will excuse me.” 

I was left alone. Presently, I thought I would walk a 

396 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

little farther, or at any rate change my position. I rounded 
a comer in the pathway ; and there I found Thekla, watching 
by little sleeping Max. He lay on her shawl ; and over his 
head she had made an arching canopy of broken vine- 
branches, so that the great leaves threw their cool, flickering 
shadows on his face. He was smeared all over with grape- 
juice ; his sturdy fingers grasped a half-eaten bunch even in 
his sleep. Thekla was keeping Lina quiet, by teaching her 
how to weave a garland for her head out of field-flowers and 
autumn-tinted leaves. The maiden sat on the ground, with 
her back to the valley beyond, the child kneeling by her, 
watching the busy fingers with eager intentness. Both 
looked up as I drew near, and we exchanged a few words. 

“ Where is the master ? ” I asked. “ I promised to await 
his return ; he wished to give me his arm down the wooden 
steps ; but I do not see him.” 

“ He is in the higher vineyard,” said Thekla quietly, but 
not looking round in that direction. “ He will be some time 
there, I should think. He went with the pastor and his wife ; 
he will have to speak to his labourers and his friends. My 
arm is strong, and I can leave Max in Lina’s care for five 
minutes. If you are tired, and want to go back, let me help 
you down the steps ; they are steep and slippery.” 

I had turned to look up the valley. Three or four hundred 
yards off, in the higher vineyard, walked the dignified pastor 
and his homely decorous wife. Behind came the Fraulein 
Anna, in her short-sleeved Sunday gown, daintily holding a 
parasol over her luxuriant brown hair. Close behind her 
came Herr Muller, stopping now to speak to his men — again, 
to cull out a bunch of grapes to tie on to the Fraulein’s stick ; 
and by my feet sate the proud serving-maid in her country 
dress, waiting for my answer, with serious, upturned eyes, 
and sad, composed face. 

“No, I am much obliged to you, Thekla ; and, if I did 
not feel so strong, I would have thankfully taken your arm. 
But I only wanted to leave a message for the master, just to 
say that I have gone home.” 


397 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

“ Lina will give it to the father, when he comes down,” 
said Thekla. 

I went slowly down into the garden. The great labour 
of the day was over, and the younger part of the population 
had returned to the village, and were preparing the fireworks 
and pistol-shootings for the evening. Already one or two of 
those well-known German carts (in the shape of a V) were 
standing near the vineyard gates, the patient oxen meekly 
waiting, while basketful after basketful of grapes were being 
emptied into the leaf-lined receptacle. 

As I sat down in my easy-chair close to the open window 
through which I had entered, I could see the men and women 
on the hill- side drawing to a centre, and all stand round the 
pastor, bare-headed, for a minute or so. I guessed that some 
words of holy thanksgiving were being said, and I wished 
that I had stayed to hear them, and mark my especial grati- 
tude for having been spared to see that day. Then I heard 
the distant voices, the deep tones of the men, the shriller 
pipes of women and children, join in the German harvest- 
hymn, which is generally sung on such occasions ; * then 
silence, while I concluded that a blessing was spoken by the 
pastor, with outstretched arms; and then they once more 
dispersed, some to the village, some to finish their labours 
for the day among the vines. I saw Thekla coming through 
the garden with Max in her arms, and Lina clinging to her 
woollen skirts. Thekla made for my open window ; it was 
rather a shorter passage into the house than round by the 
door. “I may come through, may I not?” she asked 

* Wir pfliigen und wir streuen 
Den Saamen auf das Land ; 

Das Wachsen und Gedeihen 
Steht in des Hochsten Hand. 

Er sendet Thau und Regen, 

Und Sonn-und Mondenschein ; 

Von Ihm kommt aller Segen, 

Von unserm Gott allein. 

Alle gute Gabe 

Kommt her von Gott dem Herm ; 

Drum dankt und hofit auf Ihn t 

398 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

softly. “ I fear Max is not well ; I cannot understand his 
look, and he wakened up so strange ! ” She paused to let 
me see the child’s face ; it was flushed almost to a crimson 
look of heat, and his breathing was laboured and uneasy, 
his eyes half-open and filmy. 

“ Something is wrong, I am sure,” said I. “ I don’t 
know anything about children, but he is not in the least like 
himself.” 

She bent down and kissed the cheek, so tenderly that 
she would not have bruised the petal of a rose. “ Heart’s 
darling ! ” she murmured. He quivered all over at her touch, 
working his fingers in an unnatural kind of way, and ending 
with a convulsive twitching all over his body. Lina began 
to cry at the grave, anxious look on our faces. 

“ You had better call the Fraulein to look at him,” said 
I. “ I feel sure he ought to have a doctor ; I should say he 
was going to have a fit.” 

“ The Fraulein and the master are gone to the pastor’s 
for coffee, and Lottchen is in the higher vineyard, taking the 
men their bread and beer. Could you find the kitchen-girl, 
or old Karl ? he will be in the stables, I think. I must lose 
no time.” Almost without waiting for my reply, she had 
passed through the room, and in the empty house I could 
hear her firm, careful footsteps going up the stair; Lina’s 
pattering beside her ; and the one voice wailing, the other 
speaking low comfort. 

I was tired enough ; but this good family had treated me 
too much like one of their own for me not to do what I 
could, in such a case as this. I made my way out into the 
street, for the first time since I had come to the house on 
that memorable evening six weeks ago. I bribed the first 
person I met to guide me to the doctor’s, and sent him 
straight down to the “ Halbmond ”, not staying to listen to 
the thorough scolding he fell to giving me ; then, on to the 
parsonage, to tell the master and the Fraulein of the state 
of things at home. 

I was sorry to be the bearer of bad news into such a 
399 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

festive chamber as the pastor’s. There they sat, resting 
after heat and fatigue, each in their best gala dress, the 
table spread with “ Dicke Milch,” potato-salad, cakes of 
various shapes and kinds— all the dainty cates dear to the 
German palate. The pastor was talking to Herr Muller, who 
stood near the pretty young Fraulein Anna, in her fresh 
white chemisette, with her round white arms, and her youth- 
ful coquettish airs, as she prepared to pour out the coffee ; 
our Fraulein was talking busily to the Frau Mama ; the 
younger boys and girls of the family filling up the room. A 
ghost would have startled the assembled party less than I 
did, and would probably have been more welcome, consider- 
ing the news I brought. As he listened, the master caught 
up his hat and went forth, without apology or farewell. 
Our Fraulein made up for both, and questioned me fully; 
but now she, I could see, was in haste to go, although re- 
strained by her manners, and the kind-hearted Frau Pastorin 
soon set her at liberty to follow her inclination. As for me, 
I was dead beat, and only too glad to avail myself of the 
hospitable couple’s pressing request, that I would stop and 
share their meal. Other magnates of the village came in 
presently, and relieved me of the strain of keeping up a 
German conversation about nothing at all with entire 
strangers. The pretty Fraulein’s face had clouded over a 
httle at Herr Muller’s sudden departure ; but she was soon 
as bright as could be, giving private chase and sudden little 
scoldings to her brothers, as they made raids upon the 
dainties under her charge. After I was duly rested and 
refreshed, I took my leave; for I, too, had my quieter 
anxieties about the sorrow in the Muller family. 

The only person I could see at the “ Halbmond ” was 
Lottchen ; every one else was busy about the poor little 
Max, who was passing from one fit into another. I told 
Lottchen to ask the doctor to come in and see me before he 
took his leave for the night ; and, tired as I was, I kept up 
till after his visit, though it was very late before he came ; 
I could see from his face how anxious be was. He would 

400 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

give me no opinion as to the child’s chances of recovery; 
from which I guessed that he had not much hope. But, 
when I expressed my fear, he cut me very short. 

“ The truth is, you know nothing about it ; no more do 
I, for that matter. It is enough to try any man, much less 
a father, to hear his perpetual moans — not that he is con- 
scious of pain, poor little worm ; but, if she stops for a 
moment in her perpetual carrying him backwards and for- 
wards, he plains so piteously it is enough to— enough to 
make a man bless the Lord, who never led him into the pit 
of matrimony. To see the father up there, following her as 
she walks up and down the room, the child’s head over her 
shoulder, and Muller trying to make the heavy eyes recognise 
the old familiar ways of play, and the chirruping sounds 
which he can scarce make for crying ! I shall be here 
to-morrow early, though, before that, either life or death will 
have come without the old doctor’s help.” 

All night long I dreamt my feverish dream — of the vine- 
yard — the carts, which held little coffins instead of baskets 
of grapes — of the pastor’s daughter, who would pull the 
dying child out of Thekla’s arms ; it was a bad, weary night ! 
I slept long into the morning ; the broad daylight filled my 
room ; and yet no one had been near to waken me ! Did 
that mean life or death ? I got up and dressed as fast as 
I could ; for I was aching all over with the fatigue of the 
day before. Out into the sitting-room; the table was laid 
for breakfast, but no one was there. I passed into the house 
beyond, up the stairs, blindly seeking for the room where 
I might know whether it was life or death. At the door of 
a room I found Lottchen crying ; at the sight of me in that 
unwonted place she started, and began some kind of apology, 
broken both by tears and smiles, as she told me that the 
doctor said the danger was over — past, and that Max was 
sleeping a gentle peaceful slumber in Thekla’s arms — arms 
that had held him all through the livelong night. 

“ Look at him, sir ; only go in softly ; it is a pleasure to 
see the child to-day ; tread softly, sir ! ” 

401 


2 D 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

She opened the chamber-door. I could see Thekla 
sitting, propped up by cushions and stools, holding her heavy 
burden, and bending over him with a look of tenderest love. 
Not far off stood the Fraulein, all disordered and tearful, 
stirring or seasoning some hot soup, while the master stood 
by her, impatient. As soon as it was cooled or seasoned 
enough, he took the basin and went to Thekla, and said 
something very low ; she lifted up her head, and I could see 
her face ; pale, weary with watching, but with a soft, peace- 
ful look upon it, which it had not worn for weeks. Fritz 
Muller began to feed her, for her hands were occupied in 
holding his child; I could not help remembering Mrs. 
Inchbald’s pretty description of Dorriforth’s anxiety in 
feeding Miss Milner ; she compares it, if I remember rightly, 
to that of a tender-hearted boy, caring for his darling bird, 
the loss of which would embitter all the joys of his holidays. 
We closed the door without noise, so as not to waken the 
sleeping child. Lottchen brought me my coffee and bread ; 
she was ready either to laugh or to weep on the slightest 
occasion. I could not tell if it was in innocence or in 
mischief that she asked me the following question — 

“ Do you think Thekla will leave to-day, sir ? " 

In the afternoon I heard Thekla’s step behind my ex- 
temporary screen. I knew it quite well. She stopped for 
a moment, before emerging into my view. 

She was trying to look as composed as usual ; but, perhaps 
because her steady nerves had been shaken by her night’s 
watching, she could not help faint touches of dimples at the 
comers of her mouth, and her eyes were veiled from any 
inquisitive look by their drooping lids. 

“ I thought you would like to know that the doctor says 
Max is quite out of danger now. He will only require 
care.” 

“ Thank you, Thekla ; Doctor has been in already 

this afternoon to tell me so, and I am tmly glad.” 

She went to the window, and looked out for a moment. 
Many people were in the vineyards again to-day ; although 

402 


Six Weeks at Heppenheim 

we, in our household anxiety, had paid them hut little heed. 
Suddenly, she turned round into the room, and I saw that 
her face was crimson With blushes. In another instant 
Herr Miiller entered by the window. 

“ Has she told you, sir ? ” said he, possessing himself of 
her hand, and looking all a-glow with happiness. “ Hast 
thou told our good friend ? ” addressing her. 

** No. I was going to tell him, but I did not know how 
to begin.” 

“ Then I will prompt thee. Say after me — ‘ I have been 
a wilful, foolish woman ’ ” 

She wrenched her hand out of his, half -laughing — “ I am 
a foolish woman, for I have promised to marry him. But he 
is a still more foolish man, for he wishes to marry me. That 
is what I say.” 

** And I have sent Babette to Frankfort with the pastor. 
He is going there, and will explain all to Frau von Schmidt ; 
and Babette will serve her for a time. When Max is well 
enough to have the change of air the doctor prescribes for 
him, thou shalt take him to Altenahr ; and thither will I also 
go, and become known to thy people and thy father. And 
before Christmas the gentleman here shall dance at our 
wedding.” 

“ I must go home to England, dear friends, before many 
days are over. Perhaps we may travel together as far as 
Remagen. Another year I will come back to Heppenheim 
and see you.” 

As I planned it, so it was. We left Heppenheim all 
together on a lovely All-Saints’ day. The day before — the 
day of All-Souls — I had watched Fritz and Thekla lead little 
Lina up to the Acre of God, the Field of Rest, to hang the 
wreath of immortelles on her mother’s grave. Peace be with 
the dead and the living ! 


403 


A DARK NIGHT’S WORK 


OHAPTBE I 

In the county town of a certain shire there lived (about forty 
years ago) one Mr. Wilkins, a conveyancing attorney of 
considerable standing. 

The certain shire was but a small county, and the principal 
town in it contained only about four thousand inhabitants ; so, 
in saying that Mr. Wilkins was the principal lawyer in Ham- 
ley, I say very little, unless I add that he transacted all the 
legal business of the gentry for twenty miles round. His 
grandfather had established the connection; his father had 
consolidated and strengthened it, and, indeed, by his wise 
and upright conduct, as well as by his professional skill, had 
obtained for himself the position of confidential friend to , 
many of the surrounding families of distinction. He visited 
among them in a way which no mere lawyer had ever done 
before ; dined at their tables — he alone, not accompanied by 
his wife, be it observed ; rode to the meet occasionally, as if 
by accident, although he was as well mounted as any squire 
among them, and was often persuaded (after a little coquetting 
about “ professional engagements,” and “ being wanted at the 
ofi&ce ”) to have a run with his clients ; nay, once or twice 
he forgot his usual caution, was first in at the death, and 
rode home with the brush. But in general he knew his 
place — as his place was held to be in that aristocratic county, 
and in those days. Nor let it be supposed that he was in 
any way a toad-eater. He respected himself too much for 
that. He would give the most unpalatable advice, if need 

404 


A Dark Night’s Work 

were ; would counsel an unsparing reduction of expenditure 
to an extravagant man; would recommend such an abate- 
ment of family pride as paved the way for one or two happy 
marriages in some instances ; nay, what was the most likely 
piece of conduct of all to give offence forty years ago, he 
would speak up for an unjustly-used tenant ; and that with 
so much temperate and well-timed wisdom and good feeling, 
that he more than once gained his point. He had one son, 
Edward. This boy was the secret joy and pride of his father’s 
heart. Eor himself he was not in the least ambitious, but it 
did cost him a hard struggle to acknowledge that his own 
business was too lucrative, and brought in too large an in- 
come, to pass away into the hands of a stranger, as it would 
do if he indulged his ambition for his son by giving him a 
college education and making him into a barrister. This 
determination on the more prudent side of the argument took 
place while Edward was at Eton. The lad had, perhaps, the 
largest allowance of pocket-money of any boy at the school ; 
and he had always lookea forward to going to Christ Church 
along with his fellows, the sons of the squires, his father’s 
employers. It was a severe mortification to him to find that 
his destiny was changed, and that he had to return to Hamley 
, to be articled to his father, and to assume the hereditary sub- 
servient position to lads whom he had licked in the playground, 
and beaten at learning. 

His father tried to compensate him for the disappointment 
by every indulgence which money could purchase. Edward’s 
horses were even finer than those of his father ; his literary 
tastes were kept up and fostered by his father’s permission 
to form an extensive library, for which purpose a noble room 
was added to Mr. Wilkins’s already extensive house in the 
suburbs of Hamley. And after his year of legal study in 
London his father sent him to make the grand tour, with 
something very hke carte blanche as to expenditure, to judge 
from the packages which were sent home from various parts 
of the Continent. 

At last he came home — came back to settle as his father’s 

405 


A Dark Night’s Work 

partner at Hamley. He was a son to be proud of, and right 
down proud was old Mr. Wilkins of his handsome, accom- 
plished, gentlemanly lad. For Edward was not one to be 
spoilt by the course of indulgence he had passed through ; at 
least, if it had done him an injury, the effects were at present 
hidden from view. He had no vulgar vices ; he was, indeed, 
rather too refined for the society he was likely to be thrown 
into, even supposing that society to consist of the highest of 
his father’s employers. He was well-read, and an artist of 
no mean pretensions. Above all, “ his heart was in the right 
place ”, as his father used to observe. Nothing could exceed 
the deference he always showed to him. His mother had 
long been dead. 

I do not know whether it was Edward’s own ambition or 
his proud father’s wishes that had led him to attend the 
Hamley assemblies. I should conjecture the latter, for 
Edward had of himself too much good taste to wish to intrude 
into any society. In the opinion of all the shire, no society 
had more reason to consider itself select than that which met 
at every full-moon in the Hamley assembly-room, an excres- 
cence built on to the principal inn in the town by the joint 
subscription of all the county-families. Into those choice 
and mysterious precincts no town’s person was ever allowed 
to enter ; no professional man might set his foot therein ; no 
infantry officer saw the interior of that ball or that card room. 
The old original subscribers would fain have had a man prove 
his sixteen quarterings before he might make his bow to the 
queen of the night ; but the old original founders of the 
Hamley assemblies were dropping off ; minuets had vanished 
with them, country dances bad died away, quadrilles were 
in high vogue — nay, one or two of the high magnates of 

shire were trying to introduce waltzing (as they had seen 

it in London, where it had come in with the visit of the 
Allied sovereigns), when Edward Wilkins made his dehut on 
these boards. He had been at many splendid assemblies 
abroad; but still the little old ball-room attached to the 
George Inn in his native town was to him a place grander 

406 


A Dark Night’s Work 

and more awful than the most magnificent saloons he had 
seen in Paris or Eome. He laughed at himself for this un- 
reasonable feeling of awe ; but there it was, notwithstanding. 
He had been dining at the house of one of the lesser gentry, 
who was under considerable obligations to his father, and 
who was the parent of eight “ muckle-moo’d ” daughters, so 
hardly likely to oppose much aristocratic resistance to the 
elder Mr. Wilkins’s clearly implied wish that Edward should 
be presented at the Hamley assembly-rooms. But many a 
squire glowered and looked black at the introduction of 
Wilkins the attorney’s son into the sacred precincts ; and 
perhaps there would have been much more mortification 
than pleasure in this assembly to the young man, had it not 
been for an incident that occurred pretty late in the evening. 
The lord-lieutenant of the county usually came with a large 
party to the Hamley assemblies once in a season ; and this 
night he was expected, and with him a fashionable duchess 
and her daughters. But time wore on, and they did not 
make their appearance. At last there was a rustling and a 
bustling, and in sailed the superb party. For a few minutes 
dancing was stopped; the earl led the duchess to a sofa; 
some of their acquaintances came up to speak to them ; and 
then the quadrilles were finished in rather a flat manner. 
A country dance followed, in which none of the lord-lieu- 
tenant’s party joined; then there was a consultation, a 
request, an inspection of the dancers, a message to the 
orchestra, and the band struck up a waltz; the duchess’s 
daughters flew off to the music, and some more young ladies 
seemed ready to follow ; but, alas I there was a lack of gentle- 
men acquainted with the new-fashioned dance. One of the 
stewards bethought him of young Wilkins, only just returned 
from the Continent. Edward was a beautiful dancer, and 
waltzed to admiration. For his next partner he had one of 

the Lady s; for the duchess, to whom the shire 

squires and their little county politics and contempts were 
alike unknown, saw no reason why her lovely Lady Sophy 
should not have a good partner, whatever his pedigree might 

407 


A Dark Night’s Work 

be, and begged the stewards to introduce Mr. Wilkins to her. 
After this night, his fortune was made with the young ladies 
of the Hamley assemblies. He was not unpopular with the 
mammas ; but the heavy squires still looked at him askance, 
and the heirs (whom he had hcked at Eton) called him an 
upstart behind his back. 


CHAPTEE II 

It was not a satisfactory situation. Mr. Wilkins had given 
his son an education and tastes beyond his position. He 
could not associate with either profit or pleasure with the 
doctor or the brewer of Hamley ; the vicar was old and deaf, 
the curate a raw young man, half -frightened at the sound of 
his own voice. Then, as to matrimony — for the idea of his 
marriage was hardly more present in Edward’s mind than in 
that of his father — he could scarcely fancy bringing home any 
one of the young ladies of Hamley to the elegant mansion, 
so full of suggestion and association to an educated person, 
so inappropriate a dwelling for an ignorant, uncouth, ill- 
brought-up girl. Yet Edward was fully aware, if his fond 
father was not, that of all the young ladies who were glad 
enough of him as a partner at the Hamley assemblies, there 
was not one of them but would have considered herself 
affronted by an offer of marriage from an attorney, the son 
and grandson of attorneys. The young man had perhaps 
received many a slight and mortification pretty quietly 
during these years, which yet told upon his character in after 
life. Even at this very time they were having their effect. 
He was of too sweet a disposition to show resentment, as 
many men would have done. But nevertheless he took a 
secret pleasure in the power which his father’s money gave 
him. He would buy an expensive horse after five minutes’ 
conversation as to the price, about which a needy heir of one 

408 


A Dark Night’s Work 

of the proud county-families had been haggling for three 
weeks. His dogs were from the best kennels in England, no 
matter at what cost ; his guns were of the newest and most 
improved make ; and all these were expenses on objects 
which were among those of daily envy to the squires and 
squires’ sons around. They did not much care for the 
treasures of art, which report said were being accumulated 
in Mr. Wilkins’s house. But they did covet the horses and 
hounds he possessed ; and the young man knew that they 
coveted, and rejoiced in it. 

By-and-by, he formed a marriage, which went as near as 
marriages ever do towards pleasing everybody. He was 
desperately in love with Miss Lamotte, so he was dehghted 
when she consented to be his wife. His father was delighted 
in his delight, and, besides, was charmed to remember that 
Miss Lamotte’s mother had been Sir Frank Holster’s 
younger sister, and that, although her marriage had been 
disowned by her family, as beneath her in rank, yet no one 
could efface her name out of the Baronetage, where Lettice, 
youngest daughter of Sir Mark Holster, born 1772, married 
H. Lamotte, 1799, died 1810, was duly chronicled. She had 
left two children, a boy and a girl, of whom their uncle, Sir 
Frank, took charge, as their father was worse than dead — an 
outlaw whose name was never mentioned. Mark Lamotte 
was in the army ; Lettice had a dependent position in her 
uncle’s family . not intentionally made more dependent than 
was rendered necessary by circumstances, but still dependent 
enough to grate on the feelings of a sensitive girl, whose 
natural susceptibility to slights was redoubled by the con- 
stant recollection of her father’s disgrace. As Mr. Wilkins 
well knew, Sir Frank was considerably involved ; but it was 
with very mixed feelings that he listened to the suit which 
would provide his penniless niece with a comfortable, not to 
say luxurious, home, and wuth a handsome, accomplished 
young man, of unblemished character, for a husband. He 
said one or two bitter and insolent things to Mr. Wilkins, 
even while he was giving his consent to the match; that 

409 


A Dark Night’s Work 

was his temper, his proud, evil temper ; but he was really 
and permanently satisfied with the connection, though he 
would occasionally turn round on his nephew-in-law, and 
sting him with a covert insult as to his want of birth, and 
the inferior position which he held ; forgetting, apparently, 
that his own brother-in-law and Lettice’s father might be at 
any moment brought to the bar of justice, if he attempted to 
re-enter his native country. 

Edward was annoyed at all this ; Lettice resented it. 
She loved her husband dearly, and was proud of him ; for 
she had discernment enough to see how superior he was in 
every way to her cousins, the young Holsters, who borrowed 
his horses, drank his wines, and yet had caught their father’s 
habit of sneering at his profession. Lettice wished that 
Edward would content himself with a purely domestic life, 

would let himself drop out of the company of the shire 

squirearchy, and find his relaxation with her, in their 
luxurious library, or lovely drawing-room, so full of white, 
gleaming statues and gems of pictures. But, perhaps, this 
was too much to expect of any man, especially of one who 
felt himself fitted in many ways to shine in society, and who 
was sociable by nature. Sociability in that county at that time 
meant conviviality. Edward did not care for wine, and yet 
he was obliged to drink — and, by-and-by, he grew to pique 
himself on his character as a judge of wine. His father by 
this time was dead ; dead, happy old man, with a contented 
heart — his affairs flourishing, his poorer neighbours loving 
him, his richer respecting him, his son and daughter-in-law 
the most affectionate and devoted that ever man had, and 
his healthy conscience at peace with his God. 

Lettice could have lived to herself and her husband and 
children. Edward daily required more and more the stimulus 
of society. His wife wondered how he could care to accept 
dinner invitations from people who treated him as “ Wilkins 
the attorney, a very good sort of fellow,” as they introduced 
him to strangers who might be staying in the country, but 
who had no power to appreciate the taste, the talents, the 

410 


A Dark Night’s Work 

impulsive artistic nature, which she held so dear. She forgot 
that by accepting such invitations Edward was occasionally 
brought into contact with people not merely of high con- 
ventional, but of high intellectual rank ; that, when a certain 
amount of wine had dissipated his sense of inferiority of 
rank and position, he was a brilliant talker, a man to be 
listened to and admired even by wandering London states- 
men, professional diners-out, or any great authors who 

might find themselves visitors in a shire country-house. 

What she would have had him share from the pride of her 
heart, she should have warned him to avoid from the tempta- 
tions to sinful extravagance which it led him into. He had 
begun to spend more than he ought, not in intellectual — 
though that would have been wrong — but in purely material 
things. His wines, his table, should be such as no squire’s 
purse or palate could command. His dinner-parties — small 
in number, the viands rare and delicate in quality, and sent 
up to tible by an Itahan cook — should be such as even the 
London stars should notice with admiration. He would 
have Lettice dressed in the richest materials, the most 
delicate lace ; jewellery, he said, was beyond their means ; 
glancing with proud humility at the diamonds of the elder 
ladies, and the alloyed gold of the younger. But he managed 
to spend as much on his wife’s lace as would have bought 
many a set of inferior jewellery. Lettice well became it all. 
If, as people said, her father had been nothing but a French 
adventurer, she bore traces of her nature in her grace, her 
delicacy, her fascinating and elegant ways of doing all things. 
She was made for society ; and yet she hated it. And, one 
day, she went out of it altogether and for evermore. She 
had been well in the morning, when Edward went down to 
his ofl&ce in Hamley. At noon he was sent for by hurried 
trembling messengers. When he got home, breathless and 
uncomprehending, she was past speech. One glance from 
her lovely, loving black eyes showed that she recognised him 
with the passionate yearning that had been one of the 
characteristics of her love through hfe. There was no word 

411 


A Dark Night’s Work 

passed between them. He could not speak, any more than 
could she. He knelt down by her. She was dying; she 
was dead ; and he knelt on immovable. They brought him 
his eldest child, Ellinor, in utter despair what to do in order 
to rouse him. They had no thought as to the effect on her, 
hitherto shut up in the nursery during this busy day of 
confusion and alarm. The child had no idea of death ; and 
her father, kneeling and tearless, was far less an object of 
surprise or interest to her than her mother, lying still and 
white, and not turning her head to smile at her darling. 

“ Mamma ! mamma ! ” cried the child, in shapeless 
terror. But the mother never stirred; and the father hid 
his face yet deeper in the bedclothes, to stifle a cry as if a 
sharp knife had pierced his heart. The child forced her 
impetuous way from her attendants, and rushed to the bed. 
Undeterred by deadly cold or stony immobility, she kissed 
the lips and stroked the glossy raven hair, murmuring sweet 
words of wild love, such as had passed between the mother 
and child, often and often, when no witnesses were by, and 
altogether seemed so nearly beside herself in an agony of 
love and terror, that Edward arose and, softly taking her in 
his arms, bore her away, lying back like one dead (so ex- 
hausted was she by the terrible emotion they had forced on 
her childish heart), into his study, a little room opening out 
of the grand library; where on happy evenings, never to 
come again, he and his wife were wont to retire to have 
coffee together, and then perhaps stroll out of the glass door 
into the open air, the shrubbery, the fields — never more to 
be trodden by those dear feet. What passed between father 
and child in this seclusion, none could tell. Late in the 
evening, Ellinor’ s supper was sent for, and the servant who 
brought it in saw the child lying as one dead in her father’s 
arms and, before he left the room, watched his master 
feeding her, the girl of six years of age, with as tender care 
as if she had been a baby of six months. 


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A Dark Night’s Work 


CHAPTEE III 

From that time, the tie between father and daughter grew 
very strong and tender indeed. Ellinor, it is true, divided 
her affection between her baby sister and her papa ; but he, 
caring little for babies, had only a theoretic regard for his 
younger child, while the elder absorbed all his love. Every 
day that he dined at home Ellinor was placed opposite to 
him, while he ate his late dinner ; she sat where her mother 
had done during the meal, although she had dined and even 
supped some time before on the more primitive nursery fare. 
It was half pitiful, half amusing, to see the little girl’s grave, 
thoughtful ways and modes of speech, as if trying to act up 
to the dignity of her place as her father’s companion, till 
sometimes the little head nodded off to slumber in the 
middle of lisping some wise little speech. “ Old-fashioned,” 
the nurses called her, and prophesied that she would not 
live long, in consequence of her old-fashionedness. But, 
instead of the fulfilment of this prophecy, the fat, bright baby 
was seized with fits, and was well, ill, and dead in a day ! 
Ellinor’s grief was something alarming, from its quietness 
and concealment. She waited till she was left — as she 
thought — alone at nights, and then sobbed and cried her 
passionate cry for “Baby, baby, come back to me — come 
back ” ; till every one feared for the health of the frail little 
girl, whose childish affections had had to stand two such 
shocks. Her father put aside all business, all pleasure of 
every kind, to win his darling from her grief. No mother 
could have done more, no tenderest nurse done half so much 
as Mr. Wilkins then did for Ellinor. 

If it had not been for him, she would have just died of 
her grief. As it was, she overcame it — but slowly, wearily 
— hardly letting herself love any one for some time, as if she 
instinctively feared lest all her strong attachments should 
find a sudden end in death. Her love — thus dammed up 

4^3 


A Dark Night’s Work 

into a small space — at last burst its banks, and overflowed 
on her father. It was a rich reward to him for all his care 
of her, and he took delight — perhaps a selfish delight — in 
all the many pretty ways she perpetually found of convincing 
him, if he had needed conviction, that he was ever the first 
object with her. The nurse told him that, half-an-hour or 
so before the earliest time at which he could be expected 
home in the evenings. Miss Ellinor began to fold up her 
doll’s things and lull the inanimate treasure to sleep. Then 
she would sit and listen with an intensity of attention for 
his footstep. Once the nurse had expressed some wonder 
at the distance at which Ellinor could hear her father’s 
approach, saying that she had listened and could not hear 
a sound, to which Ellinor had replied — 

“ Of course you cannot ; he is not your papa ! ” 

Then, when he went away in the morning, after he had 
kissed her, Ellinor would run to a certain windbw from 
which she could watch him up the lane, now hidden behind 
a hedge, now reappearing through an open space, again out 
of sight, till he reached a great old beech-tree, where for an 
instant more she saw him. And then she would turn away 
with a sigh, sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by 
saying softly to herself — 

“ He will come again to-night.” 

Mr. Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent on him for 
all her pleasures. He was even a little jealous of any one 
who devised a treat or conferred a present, the first news of 
which did not come from or through him. 

At last it was necessary that Ellinor should have some 
more instruction than her good old nurse could give. Her 
father did not care to take upon himself the office of teacher, 
which he thought he foresaw would necessitate occasional 
blame, an occasional exercise of authority, which might 
possibly render him less idolised by his little girl; so he 
commissioned Lady Holster to choose out one among her 
m2^nj protegees as a governess for his daughter. Now, Lady 
Holster, who kept a sort of amateur county register-office, 

414 


A Dark Night’s Work 

was only too glad to be made of use in this way ; but, when 
she inquired a little further as to the sort of person required, 
all she could extract from Mr. Wilkins was — 

“You know the kind of education a lady should have, 
and will, I am sure, choose a governess for Ellinor better 
than I could direct you. Only, please, choose some one 
who will not marry me, and who will let Ellinor go on 
making my tea, and doing pretty much what she likes ; for 
she is so good they need not try to make her better, only to 
teach her what a lady should know.” 

Miss Monro was selected — a plain, intelligent, quiet 
woman of forty — and it was difi&cult to decide whether she 
or Mr. Wilkins took the most pains to avoid each other, 
acting, with regard to Ellinor, pretty much like the famous 
Adam and Eve in the weather-glass : when the one came 
out, the other went in. Miss Monro had been tossed about 
and overworked quite enough in her life not to value the 
privilege and indulgence of her evenings to herself, her 
comfortable schoolroom, her quiet cosy teas, her book, or 
her letter- writing afterwards. By mutual agreement she did 
not interfere with Ellinor and her ways and occupations on 
the evenings when the girl had not her father for com- 
panion ; and these occasions became more and more frequent 
as years passed on, and the deep shadow was lightened 
which the sudden death that had visited his household had 
cast over him. As I have said before, he was always a 
popular man at dinner-parties. His amount of intelligence 

and accomplishment was rare in shire ; and, if it required 

more wine than formerly to bring his conversation up to the 
desired point of range and brilliancy, wine was not an article 
spared or grudged at the county dinner-tables. Occasionally 
his business took him up to London. Hurried as these 
journeys might be, he never returned without a new game, a 
new toy of some kind, to “ make home pleasant to his little 
maid ”, as he expressed himself. 

He liked, too, to see what was doing in art, or in litera- 
ture ; and, as he gave pretty extensive orders for anything 

415 


A Dark Night’s Work 

he admired, he was almost sure to be followed down to 
Hamley by one or two packages or parcels, the arrival and 
opening of which began soon to form the pleasant epochs 
in Ellin or’ s grave though happy life. 

The only person of his own standing with whom Mr. 
Wilkins kept up any intercourse in Hamley was the new 
clergyman, a bachelor about his own age, a learned man, 
a fellow of his college, whose first claim on Mr. Wilkins’s 
attention was the fact that he had been travelling-bachelor 
for his university, and had consequently been on the 
Continent about the very same two years that Mr. Wilkins 
had been there ; and, although they had never met, yet they 
had many common acquaintances and common recollections 
to talk over of this period, which, after all, had been about 
the most bright and hopeful of Mr. Wilkins’s life. 

Mr. Ness had an occasional pupil ; that is to say, he 
never put himself out of the way to obtain pupils, but did 
not refuse the entreaties sometimes made him that he would 
prepare a young man for college, by allowing the said young 
man to reside and read with him. “ Ness’s men ” took 
rather high honours ; for the tutor, too indolent to find out 
work for himself, had a certain pride in doing well the work 
that was found for him. 

When Ellinor was somewhere about fourteen, a young 
Mr. Corbet came to be pupil to Mr. Ness. Her father always 
called on the young men reading with the clergyman, and 
asked them to his house. His hospitality had in course of 
time lost its recherche and elegant character, but was always 
generous, and often profuse. Besides, it was in his character 
to like the joyous, thoughtless company of the young better 
than that of the old — given the same amount of refinement 
and education in both. 

Mr. Corbet was a young man of very good family, from 
a distant county. If his character had not been so grave 
and deliberate, his years would only have entitled him to be 
called a boy, for he was but eighteen at the time when he 
came to read with Mr. Ness. But many men of five-and- 

416 


A Dark Night’s Work 

twenty have not reflected so deeply as this young Mr. Corbet 
already had. He had considered, and almost matured, his 
plan for life ; had ascertained what objects he desired most 
to accomplish in the dim future, which is to many at his age 
only a shapeless mist ; and had resolved on certain steady 
courses of action by which such objects were most hkely 
to be secured. A younger son, his family connections and 
family interest pre-arranged a legal career for him ; and it 
was in accordance with his own tastes and talents. All, 
however, which his father hoped for him was, that he might 
be able to make an income sufficient for a gentleman to live 
on. Old Mr. Corbet was hardly to be called ambitious ; or, 
if he were, his ambition was limited to views for the eldest 
son. But Balph intended to be a distinguished lawyer, not 
so much for the vision of the woolsack, which I suppose 
dances before the imagination of every young lawyer, as for 
the grand intellectual exercise, and the consequent power over 
mankind, that distinguished lawyers may always possess if 
they choose. A seat in Parliament, statesmanship, and all 
the great scope for a powerful and active mind that lay on 
each side of such a career — these were the objects which 
Ealph Corbet set before himself. To take high honours at 
college was the first step to be accomplished ; and, in order 
to achieve this Ealph had — not persuaded, persuasion was 
a weak instrument which he despised, but gravely reasoned 
his father into consenting to pay the large sum which Mr. 
Ness expected with a pupil. The good-natured old squire 
was rather pressed for ready money ; but, sooner than listen 
to an argument instead of taking his nap after dinner, he 
would have yielded anything. But this did not satisfy Ealph ; 
his father’s reason must be convinced of the desirability of 
the step, as well as his weak will give way. The squire 
listened, looked wise, sighed ; spoke of Edward’s extravagance 
and the girls’ expenses, grew sleepy, and said, “ Very true,” 

“ That is but reasonable, certainly,” glanced at the door, and 
wondered when his son would have ended his talking and 
go into the drawing-room ; and at length found himself 

417 2 E 


A Dark Night’s Work 

writing the desired letter to Mr. Ness, consenting to every- 
thing, terms and all. Mr. Ness never had a more satisfactory 
pupil, nor one whom he could treat more as an intellectual 
equal. 

Mr. Corbet, as Ealph was always called in Hamley, was 
resolute in his cultivation of himself, even exceeding what his 
tutor demanded of him. He was greedy of information in 
the hours not devoted to absolute study. Mr. Ness enjoyed 
giving information, but most of all he liked the hard, tough 
arguments on all metaphysical and ethical questions in which 
Mr. Corbet delighted to engage him. They lived together 
on terms of happy equality, having thus much in common. 
They were essentially different, however, although there were 
so many points of resemblance. Mr. Ness was unworldly, as 
far as the idea of real unworldliness is compatible with a turn 
for self-indulgence and indolence; while Mr. Corbet was 
deeply, radically worldly, yet for the accomplishment of his 
object could deny himself all the careless pleasures natural 
to his age. The tutor and pupil allowed themselves one 
frequent relaxation, that of Mr. Wilkins’s company. Mr. 
Ness would stroll to the office after the six hours’ hard 
reading were over — leaving Mr. Corbet still bent over the 
table, book-bestrewn — and see what Mr. Wilkins’s engage- 
ments were. If he had nothing better to do that evening, 
he was either asked to dine at the parsonage, or he, in his 
careless hospitable way, invited the other two to dine with 
him, Ellinor forming the fourth at table, as far as seats 
went, although her dinner had been eaten early with Miss 
Momro. She was little and slight of her age, and her father 
never seemed to understand how she was passing out of 
childhood. Yet, while in stature she was like a child, in 
intellect, in force of character, in strength of chnging affection, 
she was a woman. There might be much of the simplicity 
of a child about her — there was little of the undeveloped girl, 
varying from day to day like an April sky, careless as to 
which way her own character is tending. So the two young 
people sat with their eiders, and both rehshed the company 

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A Dark Night’s Work 

they were thus prematurely thrown into. Mr. Corbet talked 
as much as either of the other two gentlemen ; opposing and 
disputing on any side, as if to find out how much he could 
urge against received opinions. Ellinor sat silent ; her dark 
eyes flashing from time to time in vehement interest — some- 
times in vehement indignation, if Mr. Corbet, riding a-tilt at 
every one, ventured to attack her father. He saw how this 
course excited her, and rather liked pursuing it in con- 
sequence ; he thought it only amused him. 

Another way in which Ellinor and Mr. Corbet were thrown 
together occasionally was this : Mr. Ness and Mr. Wilkins 
shared the same Times between them ; and it was EUinor’s 
duty to see that the paper was regularly taken from her 
father’s house to the parsonage. Her father hked to dawdle 
over it. Until Mr, Corbet had come to live with him, Mr. 
Ness had not much cared at what time it was passed on to 
him ; but the young man took a strong interest in all public- 
events, and especially in all that was said about them. He 
grew impatient if the paper was not forthcoming, and would 
set off himself to go for it, sometimes meeting the penitent, 
breathless Ellinor in the long lane which led from Hamley 
to Mr. Wilkins’s house. At first he used to receive her eager 
“ Oh ! I am so sorry, Mr. Corbet ; but papa has only just done 
with it,” rather gruffly. After a time he had the grace to tell 
her it did not signify ; and, by-and-by, he would turn back with 
her to give her some advice about her garden, or her plants — 
for his mother and sisters were first-rate practical gardeners, 
and he himself was, as he expressed it, “ a capital consulting 
physician for a sickly plant.” 

All this time his voice, his step, never raised the child’s 
colour one shade the higher, never made her heart beat the 
least quicker, as the slightest sign of her father’s approach 
was wont to do. She learnt to rely on Mr. Corbet for advice, 
for a little occasional sympathy, and for much condescending 
attention. He also gave her more fault-finding than all the 
rest of the world put together; and, curiously enough, she 
was grateful to him for it, for she really was humble and 

419 


A Dark Night’s Work 

wished to improve. He liked the attitude of superiority which 
this implied and exercised right gave him. They were very 
good friends at present. Nothing more. 

All this time I have spoken only of Mr. Wilkins’s life as 
he stood in relation to his daughter. But there is far more 
to be said about it. After his wife’s death, he withdrew him- 
self from society for a year or two in a more positive and 
decided manner than is common with widowers. It was 
during this retirement of his that he riveted his httle daughter’s 
heart in such a way as to influence all her future life. 

When he began to go out again, it might have been per- 
ceived — had any one cared to notice — how much the different 
characters of his father and wife had influenced him and 
kept him steady. Not that he broke out into any immoral 
conduct, but he gave up time to pleasure, which both old 
Mr. Wilkins and Lettice would have quietly induced him to 
spend in the office, superintending his business. His indul- 
gence in hunting and all field-sports, had hitherto been only 
occasional ; they now became habitual, as far as the seasons 
permitted. He shared a moor in Scotland with one of the 
Holsters one year, persuading himself that the bracing air 
was good for Ellinor’s health. But the year afterwards he 
took another, this time joining with a comparative stranger ; 
and on this moor there was no house to which it was fit to 
bring a child and her attendants. He persuaded himself 
that by frequent journeys he could make up for his absences 
from Hamley. But journeys cost money ; and he was often 
away from his office when important business required 
attending to. There was some talk of a new attorney setting 
up in Hamley, to be supported by one or two of the more 
influential county-families, who had found Wilkins not so 
attentive as his father. Sir Frank Holster sent for his rela- 
tion, and told him of this project, speaking to him, at the 
same time, in pretty round terms on the folly of the life he 
was leading. Foolish it certainly was, and as such Mr. 
Wilkins was secretly acknowledging it ; but when Sir Frank, 
lashing himself, began to talk of his hearer’s presumption in 

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A Dark Night’s Work 

joining the hunt, in aping the mode of life and amusements 
of the landed gentry, Edward fired up. He knew how much 
Sir Frank was dipped ; and, comparing it with the round sum 
his own father had left him, he said some plain truths to Sir 
Prank which the latter never forgave ; and henceforth there 
was no intercourse between Holster Court and Ford Bank, 
as Mr. Edward Wilkins had christened his father’s house on 
his first return from the Continent. 

The conversation had two consequences besides the imme- 
diate one of the quarrel. Mr. Wilkins advertised for a respon- 
sible and confidential clerk to conduct the business under his 
own superintendence; and he also wrote to the Heralds’ 
College to ask if he did not belong to the family bearing the 
same name in South Wales — those who have since re-assumed 
their ancient name of De Winton. 

Both apphcations were favourably answered. A skilful, 
experienced, middle-aged clerk was recommended to him by 
one of the principal legal firms in London, and immediately 
engaged to come to Hamley at his own terms ; which were 
pretty high. But, as Mr. Wilkins said, it was worth any money 
to pay for the relief from constant responsibility which such 
a business as his involved; though some people remarked 
that he had never appeared to feel the responsibility very 
much hitherto, as witness his absences in Scotland, and his 
various social engagements when at home ; it had been very 
different (they said) in his father’s day. The Heralds’ Col- 
lege held out hopes of affiliating him to the South- Wales 
family; but it would require time and money to make the 
requisite inquiries and substantiate the claim. Now, in 
many a place there would be none to contest the right a man 
might have to assert that he belonged to such and such a 
family ; or even to assume their arms. But it was otherwise 

in shire. Every one was up in genealogy and heraldry, 

and considered filching a name and a pedigree a far worse 
sin than any of those mentioned in the Commandments. 
There were those among them who would doubt and dispute 
even the decision of the Heralds’ College ; but with it, if in 

421 


A Dark Night’s Work 

his favour, Mr. Wilkins intended to be satisfied ; and accord- 
ingly he wrote, in reply to their letter, to say that of course 
he was aware such inquiries would take a considerable sum 
of money, but still he wished them to be made, and that 
speedily. 

Before the end of the year he went up to London to 
order a brougham to be built (for Ellinor to drive out in in 
wet weather, he said; but, as going in a closed carriage 
always made her ill, he used it principally himself in driving 
to dinner-parties), with the De Winton Wilkinses’ arms 
neatly emblazoned on panel and harness. Hitherto he had 
always gone about in a dog-cart — the immediate descendant 
of his father’s old-fashioned gig. 

For all this, the squires, his employers, only laughed at 
him, and did not treat him with one whit more respect. 

Mr. Dunster, the new clerk, was a quiet, respectable-look- 
ing man ; you could not call him a gentleman in manner, and 
yet no one could say he was vulgar. He had not much 
varying expression in his face, but a permanent one of 
thoughtful consideration of the subject in hand, whatever it 
might be, that would have fitted as well with the profession 
of medicine as with that of law, and is quite the right look 
for either. Occasionally a bright flash of sudden intelligence 
lightened up his deep-sunk eyes, but even this was quickly 
extinguished as by some inward repression, and the habitu- 
ally reflective, subdued expression returned to the face. As 
soon as he came into his situation, he first began quietly to 
arrange the papers, and next the business of which they were 
the outer sign, into more methodical order than they had 
been in since old Mr. Wilkins’s death. Punctual to a moment 
himself, he looked his displeased surprise when the inferior 
clerks came tumbling in half-an-hour after the time in the 
morning ; and his look was more effective than many men’s 
words; henceforward the subordinates were within five 
minutes of the appointed hour for opening the office; but 
still he was always there before them. Mr. Wilkins himself 
winoed under his new clerk’s order and punctuality; Mr. 

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A Dark Night’s Work 

Dunster’s raised eyebrows and contraction of the lips at some 
woeful confusion in the business of the office, chafed Mr. 
Wilkins more, far more, than any open expression of opinion 
would have done ; for that he could have met and explained 
away, as he fancied. A secret respectful dislike grew up in 
his bosom against Mr. Dunster. He esteemed him, he 
valued him, and he could not bear him. Year after year, 
Mr. Wilkins had come to be more under the influence of his 
feelings, and less under the command of his reason. He 
rather cherished than repressed his nervous repugnance to 
the harsh measured tones of Mr. Dunster’s voice ; the latter 
spoke with a provincial twang which grated on his employer’s 
sensitive ear. He was annoyed at a certain green coat 
which his new clerk brought with him, and he watched its 
increasing shabbiness with a sort of childish pleasure. But 
by-and-by Mr. Wilkins found out that, from some per- 
versity of taste, Mr. Dunster always had his coats, Sunday 
and working-day, made of this obnoxious colour ; and this 
knowledge did not diminish his secret irritation. The worst 
of all, perhaps, was, that Mr. Dunster was really invaluable 
in many ways; “a perfect treasure,” as Mr. Wilkins used 
to term him in speaking of him after dinner; but, for all 
that, he came to hate his “ perfect treasure,” as he gradually 
felt that Dunster had become so indispensable to the business 
that his chief could not do without him. 

The clients re-echoed Mr. Wilkins’s words, and spoke of 
Mr. Dunster as invaluable to his master ; a thorough treasure, 
the very saving of the business. They had not been better 
attended to, not even in old Mr. Wilkins’s days; such a 
clear head, such a knowledge of law, such a steady, upright 
fellow, always at his post. The grating voice, the drawling 
accent, the bottle-green coat, were nothing to them ; far less 
noticed, in fact, than Wilkins’s expensive habits, the money 
he paid for his wine and horses, and the nonsense of claiming 
kin with the Welsh Wilkinses, and setting up his brougham 

to drive about shire lanes, and be knocked to pieces 

over the rough round paving-stones thereof. 

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A Dark Night’s Work 

All these remarks did not come near Ellinor to trouble 
her life. To her, her dear father was the first of human 
beings ; so sweet, so good, so kind, so charming in conver- 
sation, so full of accomplishment and information ! To her 
healthy, happy mind every one turned their bright side. 
She loved Miss Monro — all the servants — especially Dixon, 
the coachman. He had been her father’s playfellow as a 
boy, and, with all his respect and admiration for his master, 
the freedom of intercourse that had been established between 
them then had never quite been lost. Dixon was a fine, 
stalwart old fellow, and was as harmonious in his ways 
with his master as Mr. Dunster was discordant ; accordingly 
he was a great favourite, and could say many a thing 
which might have been taken as impertinence from another 
servant. 

He was Ellinor’ s great confidant about many of her little 
plans and projects ; things that she dared not speak of to 
Mr. Corbet, who, after her father and Dixon, was her next 
best friend. This intimacy with Dixon displeased Mr. Corbet. 
He once or twice insinuated that he did not think it was 
well to talk so familiarly as Ellinor did with a servant — one 
out of a completely different class — such as Dixon. Ellinor 
did not easily take hints ; every one had spoken plain out to 
her hitherto ; so Mr. Corbet had to say his meaning plain 
out at last. Then, for the first time, he saw her angry ; but 
she was too young, too childish, to have words at will to 
express her feelings ; she only could say broken beginnings 
of sentences, such as “ What a shame ! Good, dear Dixon, 
who is as loyal and true and kind as any nobleman ! I like 
him far better than you, Mr. Corbet, and I shall talk to 
him.” And then she burst into tears and ran away, and 
would not come to wish Mr. Corbet good-bye, though she 
knew she should not see him again for a long time, as he 
was returning the next day to his father’s house, from whence 
he would go to Cambridge. 

He was annoyed at this result of the good advice he had 
thought himself bound to give to a motherless girl, who had 

424 


A Dark Night’s Work 

no one to instruct her in the proprieties in which his own 
sisters were brought up ; he left Hamley both sorry and 
displeased. As for Ellinor, when she found out the next 
day that he really was gone — gone without even coming to 
Ford Bank again to see if she were not penitent for her 
angry words— gone without saying or hearing a word of 
good-bye — she shut herself up in her room, and cried more 
bitterly than ever, because anger against herself was mixed 
with her regret for his loss. Luckily, her father was dining 
out, or he would have inquired what was the matter with 
his darling ; and she would have had to try to explain what 
could not be explained. As it was, she sat with her back 
to the light during the schoolroom tea, and afterwards, when 
Miss Monro had settled down to her study of the Spanish 
language, Ellinor stole out into the garden, meaning to have 
a fresh cry over her own naughtiness and Mr. Corbet’s 
departure ; but the August evening was still and calm, and 
put her passionate grief to shame, hushing her up, as it were, 
with the other young creatures, who were being soothed to 
rest by the serene time of day and the subdued light of the 
twilight sky. 

There was a piece of ground surrounding the .flower- 
garden, which was not shrubbery, nor wood, nor kitchen - 
garden — only a grassy bit, out of which a group of old forest- 
trees sprang. Their roots were heaved above ground ; their 
leaves fell in autumn so profusely that the turf was ragged 
and bare in spring; but, to make up for this, there never 
was such a place for snowdrops. 

The roots of these old trees were Ellinor’s favourite play- 
place ; this space between these two was her doll’s kitchen, 
that its drawing-room, and so on. Mr. Corbet rather 
despised her contrivances for doll’s furniture, so she had 
not often brought him here; but Dixon delighted in them, 
and contrived and planned with the eagerness of six years 
old rather than forty. To-night Ellinor went to this place, 
and there were all a new collection of ornaments for Miss 
Dolly’s sitting-room made out of fir-bobs, in the prettiest 

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A Dark Night’s Work 

and most ingenious way. She knew it was Dixon’s doing, 
and rushed off in search of him to thank him. 

“ What’s the matter with my pretty ? ” asked Dixon, as 
soon as the pleasant excitement of thanking and being 
thanked was over, and he had leisure to look at her tear- 
stained face. 

“ Oh, I don’t know I Never mind,” said she, reddening. 

Dixon was silent for a minute or two, while she tried to 
turn off his attention by her hurried prattle. 

“ There’s no trouble a-foot that I can mend ? ” asked he, 
in a minute or two. 

“ Oh, no ! It’s really nothing — nothing at all,” said she. 
“ It’s only that Mr. Corbet went away without saying good- 
bye to me, that’s all.” And she looked as if she should have 
liked to cry again. 

“ That was not manners,” said Dixon decisively. 

“ But it was my fault,” replied Ellinor, pleading against 
the condemnation. 

Dixon looked at her pretty sharply from under his ragged 
bushy eyebrows. 

“ He had been giving me a lecture, and saying I didn’t 
do what his sisters did — just as if I were to be always trying 
to be like somebody else — and I was cross and ran away.” 

“ Then it was Missy who wouldn’t say good-bye. That 
was not manners in Missy.” 

“ But, Dixon, I don’t like being lectured 1 ” 

“ I reckon you don’t get much of it. But, indeed, my 
pretty, I dare say Mr. Corbet was in the right ; for, you see, 
master is busy, and Miss Monro is so dreadful learned, and 
your poor mother is dead and gone, and you have no one 
to teach you how young ladies go on ; and by all accounts 
Mr. Corbet comes of a good family. I’ve heard say his 
father had the best stud -farm in all Shropshire, and spared 
no money upon it ; and the young ladies his sisters will have 
been taught the best of manners ; it might be well for my 
pretty to hear how they go on.” 

“ You dear old Dixon, you don’t know anything about 
426 


A Dark Night’s Work 

my lecture, and I’m not going to tell you. Only I dare say 
Mr. Corbet might be a little bit right, though I’m sure he 
was a great deal wrong.” 

“But you’ll not go on a-fretting — you won’t now, there’s 
a good young lady— for master won’t like it, and it’ll make 
him uneasy, and he’s enough of trouble without your red 
eyes, bless them.” 

“ Trouble— papa, trouble! Oh, Dixon! what do you 
mean ? ”• exclaimed Ellinor, her face taking all a woman’s 
intensity of expression in a minute. 

“Nay, I know nought,” said Dixon evasively. “Only 
that Dunster fellow is not to my mind, and I think he potters 
the master sadly with his fid-fad ways.” 

“ I hate Mr. Dunster ! ” said Ellinor vehemently. “ I 
won’t speak a word to him the next time he comes to dine 
with papa.” 

“ Missy will do what papa likes best,” said Dixon, 
admonishingly ; and with this the pair of “ friends ” parted. 


CHAPTEE IV 

The summer afterwards, Mr. Corbet came again to read with 
Mr. Ness. He did not perceive any alteration in himself, 
and indeed his early-matured character had hardly made 
progress during the last twelve months, whatever intellectual 
acquirements he might have made. Therefore it was astonish- 
ing to him to see the alteration in Ellinor Wilkins. She had 
shot up from a rather puny girl to a tall, slight young lady, 
with promise of great beauty in the face, which a year ago 
had only been remarkable for the fineness of the eyes. Her 
complexion was clear now, although colourless — twelve 
months ago he would have called it sallow — her delicate 
cheek was smooth as marble, her teeth were even and white, 
and her rare smiles called out a lovely dimple. 

427 


A Dark Night’s Work 

She met her former friend and lecturer with a grave shy- 
ness, for she remembered well how they had parted, and 
thought he could hardly have forgiven, much less forgotten, 
her passionate flinging away from him. But the truth was, 
after the first few hours of offended displeasure, he had ceased 
to think of it at all. She, poor child, by way of proving her 
repentance, had tried hard to reform her boisterous tom-boy 
manners, in order to show him that, although she would not 
give up her dear old friend Dixon, at his or any one’s bidding, 
she would strive to profit by his lectures in all things reason- 
able. The consequence was, that she suddenly appeared to 
him as an elegant dignified young lady, instead of the rough 
little girl he remembered. Still below her somewhat formal 
manners there lurked the old wild spirit, as he could plainly 
see after a little more watching ; and he began to wish to call 
this out, and to strive, by reminding her of old days, and all 
her childish frolics, to flavour her subdued manners and 
speech with a little of the former originality. 

In this he succeeded. No one, neither Mr. Wilkins, nor 
Miss Monro, nor Mr. Ness, saw what this young couple were 
about — they did not know it themselves; but before the 
summer was over they were desperately in love with each 
other, or perhaps I should rather say, Ellinor was desperately 
in love with him — he, as passionately as he could be with 
any one ; but in him the intellect was superior in strength to 
either affections or passions. 

The causes of the blindness of those around them were 
these : Mr. Wilkins still considered Ellinor as a little girl, as 
his own pet, his darling, but nothing more. Miss Monro 
was anxious about her own improvement. Mr. Ness was 
deep in a new edition of “ Horace,” which he was going to 
bring out with notes. I believe Dixon would have been 
keener-sighted, but Ellinor kept Mr. Corbet and Dixon apart 
for obvious reasons— they were each her dear friends, bub 
she knew that Mr. Corbet did not like Dixon, and suspected 
that the feeling was mutual. 

The only change of circumstances between this year and 

428 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the previous one consisted in this development of attachment 
between the young people. Otherwise, everything went on 
apparently as usual. With EUinor the course of the day was 
something like this : up early and into the garden until 
breakfast time, when she made tea for her father and Miss 
Monro in the dining-room, always taking care to lay a little 
nosegay of freshly-gathered flowers by her father’s plate. 
After breakfast, when the conversation had been on general 
and indifferent subjects, Mr. Wilkins withdrew into the little 
study so often mentioned. It opened out of a passage that 
ran between the dining-room and the kitchen, on the left 
hand of the hall. Corresponding to the dining-room on the 
other side of the hall was the drawing-room, with its side- 
window serving as a door into a conservatory, and this again 
opened into the library. Old Mr. Wilkins had added a 
semicircular projection to the library, which was lighted by 
a dome above, and showed off his son’s Italian purchases of 
sculpture. The library was by far the most striking and 
agreeable room in the house ; and the consequence was that 
the drawing-room was seldom used, and had the aspect of 
cold discomfort common to apartments rarely occupied. 
Mr. Wilkins’s study, on the other side of the house, was 
also an afterthought, built only a few years ago, and pro- 
jecting from the regularity of the outside wall ; a little stone 
passage led to it from the hall, small, narrow, and dark, and 
out of which no other door opened. 

The study itself was a hexagon, one side window, one 
fireplace, and the remaining four sides occupied with doors, 
two of which have been already mentioned, another at the 
foot of the narrow winding stairs which led straight into 
Mr. Wilkins’s bedroom over the dining-room, and the fourth 
opening into a path through the shrubbery, to the left of 
the flower-garden as you looked from the house. This path 
led through the stable-yard, and then by a short cut right 
into Hamley, and brought you out close to Mr. Wilkins’s 
office ; it was by this way he always went and returned 
to his business. He used the study for a smoking- and 

429 


A Dark Night’s Work 

lounging-room principally, although he always spoke of it as 
a convenient place for holding confidential communications 
with such of his clients as did not like discussing their busi- 
ness within the possible hearing of all the clerks in his office. 
By the outer door he could also pass to the stables, and see 
that proper care was taken at all times of his favourite and 
valuable horses. Into this study Ellinor would follow him 
of a morning, helping him on with his greatcoat, mending 
his gloves, talking an infinite deal of merry, fond nothings ; 
and then, clinging to his arm, she would accompany him in 
his visits to the stables, going up to the shyest horses, and 
petting them, and patting them, and feeding them with 
bread, all the time that her father held converse with Dixon. 
When he was finally gone — and sometimes it was a long 
time first — she returned to the schoolroom to Miss Monro, 
and tried to set herself hard at work on her lessons. But 
she had not much time for steady application ; if her father 
had cared for her progress in anything, she would and could 
have worked hard at that study or accomplishment ; but 
Mr. Wilkins, the ease and pleasure loving man, did not wish 
to make himself into the pedagogue, as he would have con- 
sidered it, if he had ever questioned Ellinor with a real 
steady purpose of ascertaining her intellectual progress. It 
was quite enough for him that her general intelhgence and 
variety of desultory and miscellaneous reading made her a 
pleasant and agreeable companion for his hours of relax- 
ation. 

At twelve o’clock, Ellinor put away her books with joyful 
eagerness, kissed Miss Monro, asked her if they should go 
a regular walk, and was always rather thankful when it was 
decided that it would be better to stroll in the garden — a 
decision very often come to, for Miss Monro hated fatigue, 
hated dirt, hated scrambling, and dreaded rain ; all of which 
are evils, the chances of which are never far distant from 
country walks. So Ellinor danced out into the garden, 
worked away among her fllowers, played at the old games 
among the roots of the trees, and, when she could, seduced 

430 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Dixon into the flower-garden to have a little consultation as 
to the horses and dogs. For it was one of her father’s few 
strict rules that Ellinor was never to go into the stable-yard 
unless he were with her; so these tke-a-tetes with Dixon 
were always held in the flower-garden, or bit of forest ground 
surrounding it. Miss Monro sat and basked in the sun, 
close to the dial, which made the centre of the gay flower- 
beds, upon which the dining-room and study windows 
looked. 

At one o’clock, Ellinor and Miss Monro dined. . An hour 
was allowed for Miss Monro’s digestion, which Ellinor again 
spent out of doors, and at three, lessons began again and 
lasted till five. At that time they went to dress, in readiness 
for the school-room tea at half-past five. After tea Ellinor 
tried to prepare her lessons for the next day ; but all the 
time she was listening for her father’s footstep — the moment 
she heard that, she dashed down her book, and flew out of 
the room to welcome and kiss him. Seven was his dinner- 
hour ; he hardly ever dined alone ; indeed, he often dined 
from home four days out of seven, and when he had no 
engagement to take him out he liked to have some one to 
keep him company : Mr. Ness very often, Mr. Corbet 
along with him if he was in Hamley, or a stranger friend, 
or one of his clients. Sometimes, reluctantly, and when he 
fancied he could not avoid the attention without giving 
offence, Mr. Wilkins would ask Mr. Dunster ; and then the 
two would always follow Ellinor into the library at a very 
early hour, as if their subjects for tete-a-tUe conversation 
were quite exhausted. With all his other visitors, Mr. 
Wilkins sat long — yes, and yearly longer; with Mr. Ness, 
because they became interested in each other’s conversation ; 
with some of the others, because the wine was good, and the 
host hated to spare it. 

Mr. Corbet used to leave his tutor and Mr. Wilkins and 
saunter into the library. There sat Ellinor and Miss Monro, 
each busy with her embroidery. He would bring a stool to 
Ellinor’s side, question and tease her, interest her, and they 

431 


A Dark Night’s Work 

would become entirely absorbed in each other, Miss Monro’s 
sense of propriety being entirely set at rest by the considera- 
tion that Mr. Wilkins must know what he was about in 
allowing a young man to become thus intimate with his 
daughter, who, after all, was but a child. 

Mr. Corbet had lately fallen into the habit of walking up 
to Ford Bank for the Times every day, near twelve o’clock, 
and lounging about in the garden until one ; not exactly 
with either Ellinor or Miss Monro, but certainly far more at 
the beck and call of the one than of the other. 

Miss Monro used to think he would have been glad to 
stay and lunch at their early dinner ; but she never gave the 
invitation, and he could not well stay without her expressed 
sanction. He told Ellinor all about his mother and sisters, 
and their ways of going on, and spoke of them and of his 
father as of people she was one day certain to know, and to 
know intimately; and she did not question or doubt this 
view of things ; she simply acquiesced. 

He had some discussion with himself as to whether he 
should speak to her, and so secure her promise to be his 
before returning to Cambridge, or not. He did not like the 
formality of an application to Mr. Wilkins, which would, 
after all, have been the proper and straightforward course to 
pursue with a girl of her age — she was harely sixteen. Not 
that he anticipated any difi&culty on Mr. Wilkins’s part ; his 
approval of the intimacy, which at their respective ages was 
pretty sure to lead to an attachment, was made as evident as 
could be by actions without words. But there would have to be 
reference to his own father, who had no notion of the whole 
affair, and would be sure to treat it as a boyish fancy ; as if 
at twenty-one Ealph was not a man, clear and deliberate in 
knowing his own mind, as resolute as he ever would be in 
deciding upon the course of exertion that should lead him to 
independence and fame, if such were to be attained by clear 
intellect and a strong will. 

No ; to Mr. Wilkins he would not speak for another year 
or two. 

432 


A Dark Night’s Work 

But should he tell Ellinor in direct terms of his love — his 
intention to marry her ? 

Again he inchned to the more prudent course of silence. 
He was not afraid of any change in his own inclinations ; of 
them he was sure. But he looked upon it in this way : If 
he made a regular declaration to her, she would be bound to 
tell it to her father. He should not respect her or like her 
so much, if she did not. And yet this course would lead to 
all the conversations, and discussions, and references to his 
own father, which made his own direct appeal to Mr. Wilkins 
appear a premature step to him. 

Whereas, he was as sure of Ellinor’s love for him as if 
she had uttered all the vows that women ever spoke ; he 
knew even better than she did how fully and entirely that 
innocent girlish heart was his own . He was too proud to 
dread her inconstancy for an instant ; “ besides,” as he went 
on to himself, as if to make assurance doubly sure, “ whom 
does she see ? Those stupid Holsters, who ought to be only 
too proud of having such a girl for their cousin, ignore her 
existence, and spoke slightingly of her father only the very 
last time I dined there. The country people in this perfectly 

Boeotian shire clutch at me because my father goes up 

to the Plantagenets for his pedigree — not one whit for 
myself — and neglect Ellinor; and only condescend to her 
father because old Wilkins was nobody-knows-who’s son. 
So much the worse for them ; but so much the better for me 
in this case. I’m above their silly, antiquated prejudices, 
and shall be only too glad when the fitting time comes to 
make Ellinor my wife. After all, a prosperous attorney’s 
daughter may not be considered an unsuitable match for me 
— younger son as I am. Ellinor will make a glorious woman 
three or four years hence ; just the style my father admires 
— such a figure, such limbs. I’ll be patient, and bide my 
time, and watch my opportunities, and all will come right.” 

So he bade Ellinor farewell in a most reluctant and 
affectionate manner, although his words might have been 
spoken out in Hamley market-place, and were little different 

433 2 F 


A Dark Night’s Work 

from what he said to Miss Monro. Mr. Wilkins half- 
expected a disclosure to himself of the love which he sus- 
pected in the young man ; and, when that did not come, he 
prepared himself for a confidence from Ellinor. But she 
had nothing to tell him, as he very well perceived from the 
child’s open unembarrassed manner, when they were left 
alone together after dinner. He had refused an invitation, 
and shaken off Mr. Ness, in order to have this confidential 
Ute-a-tUe with his motherless girl; and there was nothing 
to make confidence of. He was half-inclined to be angry ; 
but then he saw that, although sad, she was so much at 
peace with herself and with the world, that he, always an 
optimist, began to think the young man had done wisely 
in not tearing open the rosebud of her feelings too prematurely. 

The next two years passed over in much the same way 
— or a careless spectator might have thought so. I have 
heard people say, that, if you look at a regiment advancing 
with steady step over a plain on a review-day, you can 
hardly tell that they are not merely marking time on one 
spot of ground, unless you compare their position with some 
other object by which to mark their progress, so even is the 
repetition. of the movement. And thus the sad events of the 
future life of this father and daughter were hardly perceived 
in their steady advance, and yet over the monotony and 
flat uniformity of their days sorrow came marching down 
upon them like an armed man. Long before Mr. Wilkins 
had recognised its shape, it was approaching him in the 
distance — as, in fact, it is approaching all of us at this very 
time; you, reader, I, writer, have each our great sorrow 
bearing down upon us. It may be yet beyond the dimmest 
point of our horizon; but in the stillness of the night our 
hearts shrink at the sound of its coming footstep. Well is 
it for those who fall into the hands of the Lord rather than 
into the hands of men ; but worst of all is it for him who 
has hereafter to mingle the gall of remorse with the cup held 
out to him by his doom. 

Mr. Wilkins took his ease and his pleasure yet more and 
434 


A Dark Night’s Work 

more every year of his life ; nor did the quality of his ease 
and his pleasure improve ; it seldom does with self-indulgent 
people. He cared less for any books that strained his 
faculties a little — less for engravings and sculptures — perhaps 
more for pictures. He spent extravagantly on his horses ; 
“ thought of eating and drinking.” There was no open vice 
in all this, so that any awful temptation to crime should 
come down upon him, and startle him out of his mode of 
thinking and living ; half the people about him did much the 
same, as far as their lives were patent to his unreflecting 
observation. But most of his associates had their duties to 
do, and did them with a heart and a will, in the hours when 
he was not in their company. Yes! I call them duties, 
though some of them might be self-imposed and purely 
social ; they were engagements they had entered into, either 
tacitly or with words, and that they fulfilled. From Mr. 
Hetherington, the Master of the Hounds, who was up at — 
no one knows what hour, to go down to the kennel and see 
that the men did their work well and thoroughly, to stem 
old Sir Lionel Playfair, the upright magistrate, the thought- 
ful, conscientious landlord — they did their work according to 
their lights ; there were few laggards among those with 
whom Mr. Wilkins associated in the field or at the dinner- 
table. Mr. Ness — though as a clergyman he was not so 
active as he might have been — yet even Mr. Ness fagged 
away with his pupils and his new edition of one of the 
classics. Only Mr. Wilkins, dissatisfied with his position, 
neglected to fulfil the duties thereof. He imitated the 
pleasures, and longed for the fancied leisure of those about 
him; leisure that he imagined would be so much more 
valuable in the hands of a man like himself, full of intel- 
lectual tastes and ,accomphshments, than frittered away 
by dull boors of untravelled, uncultivated squires — whose 
company, however, be it said by the way, he never refused. 

And yet daily Mr. Wilkins was sinking from the intel- 
lectually to the sensually self-indulgent man. He lay late 
in bed, and hated Mr. Dunster for Ms significant glance at 

435 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the office-clock, when he announced to his master that such 
and such a client had been waiting more than an hour to 
keep an appointment. “ Why didn’t you see him yourself, 
Dunster ? I’m sure you would have done quite as well as 
I,” Mr. Wilkins sometimes replied, partly with a view of 
saying something pleasant to the man whom he disliked and 
feared. Mr. Dunster always replied, in a meek matter-of- 
fact tone, “ Oh, sir, they wouldn’t like to talk over their 
affairs with a subordinate.” 

And every time he said this, or some speech of the same 
kind, the idea came more and more clearly into Mr. Wilkins’s 
head, of how pleasant it would be to himself to take Dunster 
into partnership, and thus throw all the responsibility of the 
real work and drudgery upon his clerk’s shoulders. Importu- 
nate clients, who would make appointments at unseasonable 
hours and would keep to them, might confide in the partner, 
though they would not in the clerk. The great objections to 
this course were, first and foremost, Mr. Wilkins’s strong 
dislike to Mr. Dunster — his repugnance to his company, his 
dress, his voice, his ways — all of which irritated his employer, 
till his state of feeling towards Dunster might be called anti- 
pathy ; next, Mr. Wilkins was fully aware of the fact that all 
Mr. Dunster’s actions and words were carefully and thought- 
fully pre-arranged to further the great unspoken desire of his 
life— that of being made a partner where he now was only a 
servant. Mr. Wilkins took a malicious pleasure in tantalising 
Mr. Dunster by such speeches as the one I have just men- 
tioned, which always seemed like an opening to the desired 
end, but still for a long time never led any further. Yet all 
the while that end was becoming more and more certain, and 
at last it was reached. 

Mr. Dunster always suspected that the final push was 
given by some circumstance from without ; some reprimand 
for neglect — some threat of withdrawal of business which 
his employer had received; but of this he could not be 
certain; all he knew was, that Mr. Wilkins proposed the 
partnership to him in about as ungracious a way as such an 

436 


A Dark Night’s Work 

offer could be made ; an ungraciousness which, after all, had 
so little effect on the real matter in hand, that Mr. Dunster 
could pass over it with a private sneer, while taking all 
possible advantage of the tangible benefit it was now in his 
power to accept. 

Mr. Corbet s attachment to Ellinor had been formally 
disclosed to her just before this time. He had left college, 
entered at the Middle Temple, and was fagging away at law, 
and feeling success in his own power ; Ellinor was to “ come 
out ” at the next Hamley assemblies ; and her lover began to 
be jealous of the possible admirers her striking appearance 
and piquant conversation might attract, and thought it a 
good time to make the success of his suit certain by spoken 
words and promises. 

He needed not have alarmed himself, even enough to 
make him take this step, if he had been capable of under- 
standing Ellinor’s heart as fully as he did her appearance 
and conversation. She never missed the absence of formal 
words and promises. She considered herself as fully engaged 
to him, as much pledged to marry him and no one else, 
before he had asked the final question, as afterwards. She 
was rather surprised at the necessity for those decisive 
words — 

“ Ellinor, dearest, will you — can you marry me ? ” and 
her reply was given with a deep blush I must record, and 
in a soft murmuring tone — 

“ Yes — oh, yes — I never thought of anything else.” 

“ Then I may speak to your father, may not I, darling ? ” 

“ He knows ; I am sure he knows ; and he likes you so 
much. Oh, how happy I am ! ” 

“ But still I must speak to him before I go. When can 
I see him, my Ellinor? I must go back to town at four 
o’clock.” 

“ I heard his voice in the stable-yard, only just before you 
came. Let me go and find out if he is gone to the ofi&ce 
yet.” 

No ! to be sure he was not gone. He was quietly smoking 

437 


A Dark Night’s Work 

a cigar in his study, sitting in an easy-chair near the open 
window, and leisurely glancing at all the advertisements in 
the Times. He hated going to the office more and more since 
Dunster had become a partner ; that fellow gave himself such 
airs of investigation and reprehension. 

He got up, took the cigar out of his mouth, and placed a 
chair for Mr. Corbet, knowing well why he had thus formally 
prefaced his entrance into the room with a — 

“ Can I have a few minutes’ conversation with you, Mr. 
Wilkins ? ” 

“ Certainly, my dear fellow. Sit down. Will you have a 
cigar? ” 

“ No ! I never smoke.” Mr. Corbet despised all these 
kinds of indulgences, and put a little severity into his refusal, 
but quite unintentionally ; for, though he was thankful he was 
not as other men, he was not at all the person to trouble 
himself unnecessarily with their reformation. 

“ I want to speak to you about Ellinor. She says she 
thinks you must be aware of our mutual attachment.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Wilkins — he had resumed his cigar, 
partly to conceal his agitation at what he knew was coming 
— “ I beUeve I have had my suspicions. It is not very long 
since I was young myself.” And he sighed over the recol- 
lection of Lettice, and his fresh, hopeful youth. 

“ And I hope, sir, as you have been aware of it, and have 
never manifested any disapprobation of it, that you will not 
refuse your consent — a consent I now ask you for — to our 
marriage.” 

Mr. Wilkins did not speak for a little while — a touch, a 
thought, a word more would have brought him to tears ; for 
at the last he found it hard to give the consent which would 
part him from his only child. Suddenly he got up, and put- 
ting his hand into that of the anxious lover (for his silence 
had rendered Mr. Corbet anxious up to a certain point of 
perplexity — he could not understand the implied “ he would 
and he would not ”), Mr. Wilkins said — 

“ Yes I God bless you both ! I will give her to you, 
43S 


A Dark Night’s Work 

some day — only it must be a long time first. And now go 
away — go back to her — for I can’t stand this much longer.” 

Mr. Corbet returned to Ellinor. Mr. Wilkins sat down 
and buried his head in his hands, then went to his stable, 
and had Wildfire saddled for a good gallop over the country. 
Mr. Dunster waited for him in vain at the office, where an 
obstinate old country gentleman from a distant part of the 
shire would ignore Dunster’s existence as a partner, and 
pertinaciously demanded to see Mr. Wilkins on important 
business. 


CHAPTEB V 

A FEW days afterwards, Ellinor’s father bethought himself 
that some further communication ought to take place between 
him and his daughter’s lover regarding the approval of the 
family of the latter to the young man’s engagement ; and he 
accordingly wrote a very gentlemanly letter, saying that of 
course he trusted that Ealph had informed his father of his 
engagement ; that Mr. Corbet was well known to Mr. Wilkins 
by reputation, holding the position which he did in Shropshire; 
but that, as Mr. Wilkins did not pretend to be in the same 
station of life, Mr. Corbet might possibly never even have 
heard of his name, although in his own county it was well 
known as having been for generations that of the principal 

conveyancer and land-agent of shire ; that his wife had 

been a member of the old knightly family of Holsters, and 
that he himself was descended from a younger branch of the 
South Wales de Wintons, or Wilkinses ; that Ellinor, as his 
only child, would naturally inherit all his property, but that 
in the meantime, of course, some settlement upon her would 
be made, the nature of which might be decided nearer the 
time of the marriage. 

It was a very good, straightforward letter, and well-fitted 
439 




A Dark Night’s Work 

for the purpose to which Mr. Wilkins knew it would be 
applied — of being forwarded to the young mar’s father. One 
would have thought that it was not a^ ' ^ nent so dis- 

proportionate in point of station a^ ^ause any great oppo- 
sition on that score ; but, unluckuy, Captain Corbet, the heir 
and eldest son, had just formed a similar engagement with 
Lady Maria Brabant, the daughter of one of the proudest 

magnates in shire, who had always resented Mr. Wilkins’s 

appearance on the field as an insult to the county, and 
ignored his presence at every dinner- table where they met. 
Lady Maria was visiting the Corbets at the very time when 
Ealph’s letter, enclosing Mr. Wilkins’s, reached the paternal 
halls ; and she merely repeated her father’s opinions, when 
Mrs. Corbet and her daughters naturally questioned her as 
to who these Wilkinses were ; they remembered the name in 
Ealph’s letters formerly ; the father was some friend of Mr. 
Ness’s, the clergyman with whom Ealph had read; they 
beheved Ealph used to dine with these Wilkinses sometimes, 
along with Mr. Ness. 

Lady Maria was a good-natured girl, and meant no harm 
in repeating her father’s words ; touched up, it is true, by 
some of the dislike she herself felt to the intimate alliance 
proposed, which would make her sister-in-law to the daughter 
of an “upstart attorney,” “not received in the county,” 
“ always trying to push his way into the set above him,” 

“ claiming connection with the De Wintons of Castle, 

who, as she well knew, only laughed when he was spoken 
of, and said they were more rich in relations than they were 
aware of ” — “ not people papa would ever like her to know, 
whatever might be the family connection.” 

These little speeches told in a way which the girl who 
uttered them did not intend they should. Mrs. Corbet and 
her daughters set themselves violently against this foolish 
entanglement of Ealph’s ; they would not call it an engage- 
ment. They argued, and they urged, and they pleaded, till 
the squire, anxious for peace at any price, and always more 
under the sway of the people who were with him, however 

440 


A Dark Night’s Work 

unreasonable they might be, than of the absent, even though 
these had the wisdom of Solomon or the prudence and 
sagacity of his son Ealph, wrote an angry letter, saying that, 
as Ealph was of age, of course he had a right to please 
himself ; therefore, all his father could say was, that the 
engagement was not at all what either he or Ealph’s mother 
I had expected or hoped; that it was a degradation to a 
family just going to ally themselves with a peer of James 
the First’s creation ; that of course Ealph must do what he 
hked, but that if he married this girl he must never expect 
to have her received by the Corbets of Corbet Hall as a 
daughter. The squire was rather satisfied with his produc- 
tion, and took it to show it to his wife ; but she did not 
think it was strong enough, and added a little postscript — 

“ Dear Ealph, — Though, as second son, you are entitled 
to Bromley at my death, yet I can do much to make the 
estate worthless. Hitherto, regard for you has prevented 
my taking steps as to sale of timber, &c., which would 
materially increase your sisters’ portions ; this just measure 
I shall infalhbly take, if I find you persevere in keeping to 
this silly engagement. Your father’s disapproval is always 
a sufficient reason to allege.” 

Ealph was annoyed at the receipt of these letters, though 
he only smiled as he locked them up in his desk. 

“ Dear old father ; how he blusters ! As to my mother, 
she is reasonable when I talk to her. Once give her a 
definite idea of what Ellinor’s fortune will be, and let her, 
if she chooses, cut down her timber — a threat she has held 
over me ever since I knew what a rocking-horse was, and 
which I have known to be illegal these ten years past — and 
she’ll come round. I know better than they do how Eeginald 
has run up post-obits ; and, as for that vulgar high-born Lady 
Maria they are all so full of, why, she is a Flanders mare to 
my Ellinor, and has not a silver penny to cross herself with, 
besides I I bide my time, you dear good people ! ” 

441 


A Dark Night’s Work 

He did not think it necessary to reply to these letters 
immediately, nor did he even allude to their contents in his 
to Ellinor. Mr. Wilkins, who had been very well satisfied 
with his own letter to the young man, and had thought that 
it must be equally agreeable to every one, was not at all 
suspicious of any disapproval, because the fact of a distinct 
sanction on the part of Mr. Ealph Corbet’s friends to his 
engagement was not communicated to him. 

As for Ellinor, she trembled all over with happiness. 
Such a summer for the blossoming of flowers and ripening 
of fruit had not been known for years ; it seemed to her as 
if bountiful loving Nature wanted to fill the cup of Elhnor’s 
joy to overflowing, and as if everything, animate and inani- 
mate, sympathised with her happiness. Her father was 
well, and apparently content. Miss Monro was very kind. 
Dixon’s lameness was quite gone off. Only Mr. Dunster 
came creeping about the house, on pretence of business, 
seeking out her father, and disturbing all his leisure with 
his dust-coloured, parchment-skinned, care-worn face, and 
seeming to disturb the smooth current of her daily life 
whenever she saw him. 

Ellinor made her appearance at the Hamley assemblies, 
but with less eclat than either her father or her lover ex- 
pected. Her beauty and natural grace were admired by 
those who could discriminate; but to the greater number 
there was (what they called) “ a want of style ” — want of 
elegance there certainly was not, for her figure was perfect, 
and, though she moved shyly, she moved well. Perhaps it 
was not a good place for a correct appreciation of Miss 
Wilkins; some of the old dowagers thought it a piece of 
presumption in her to be there at all — but the Lady Holster 
of the day (who remembered her husband’s quarrel with Mr. 
Wilkins, and . looked away whenever Ellinor came near) 
resented this opinion. “ Miss Wilkins is descended from 
Sir Frank’s family, one of the oldest in the county; the 
objection might have been made years ago to the father ; but, 
as he had been received, she did not know why Miss Wilkins 

442 


A Dark Night’s Work 

was to be alluded to as out of her place.” Ellinor’s greatest 
enjoyment in the evening was to hear her father say, after 
all was over, and they were driving home — 

“ Well, I thought my Nelly the prettiest girl there ; and I 
think I know some other people who would have said the 
same — if they could have spoken out.” 

“ Thank you, papa,” said Ellinor, squeezing his hand, 
which she held. She thought he alluded to the absent Ralph 
as the person who would have agreed with him, had he had 
the opportunity of seeing her; but no, he seldom thought 
much of the absent, but had been rather flattered hy seeing 
Lord Hildebrand take up his glass for the apparent purpose 
of watching Ellinor. 

“ Your pearls, too, were as handsome as any in the room, 
child — hut we must have them re-set ; the sprays are old- 
fashioned now. Let me have them to-morrow to send up to 
Hancock.” 

“ Papa, please, I had rather keep them as they are — as 
mamma wore them.” 

He was touched in a minute. 

“ Very well, darling. God hless you for thinking of it 1 ” 

But he ordered her a set of sapphires instead, for the next 
assembly. 

These halls were not such as to intoxicate Ellinor with 
success, and make her in love with gaiety. Large parties 
came from the different country-houses in the neighbourhood, 
and danced with each other. When they had exhausted the 
resources they brought with them, they had generally a few 
dances to spare for friends of the same standing with whom 
they were most intimate. Ellinor came with her father, and 
joined an old card- playing dowager, by way of a chaperone 
— the said dowager being under old business obligations 
to the firm of Wilkins & Son, and apologising to all her 
acquaintances for her own weak condescension to Mr. 
Wilkins’s foible in wishing to introduce his daughter into 
society above her natural sphere. It was upon this lady, 
after she had uttered some such speech as the one I have just 

443 


A Dark Night’s Work 

mentioned, that Lady Holster had come down with the pedi- 
gree of Ellinor’s mother. But, though the old dowager had 
drawn back a little discomfited at my lady’s reply, she was 
not more attentive to Ellinor in consequence. She allowed 
Mr. Wilkins to bring in his daughter and place her on the 
crimson sofa beside her; spoke to her occasionally in the 
interval that elapsed before the rubbers could be properly 
arranged in the card-room ; invited the girl to accompany 
her to that sober amusement; and, on Ellinor’s declining, 
and preferring to remain with her father, the dowager left 
her with a sweet smile on her plump countenance, and an 
approving conscience somewhere within her portly frame, 
assuring her that she had done all that could possibly have 
been expected from her towards “ that good Wilkins’s 
daughter.” Ellinor stood by her father watching the dances, 
and thankful for the occasional chance of a dance. While 
she had been sitting by her chaperone, Mr. Wilkins had 
made the tour of the room, dropping out the little fact of his 
daughter’s being present, wherever he thought the seed likely 
to bring forth the fruit of partners. And some came because 
they liked Mr. Wilkins, and some asked Ellinor because they 
had done their duty dances to their own party and might 
please themselves. So that she usually had an average of 
one invitation to every three dances ; and this principally 
towards the end of the evening. 

But, considering her real beauty, and the care which her 
father alw^ays took about her appearance, she met with far 
less than her due of admiration. Admiration she did not 
care for; partners she did; and sometimes felt mortified 
when she had to sit or stand quiet during all the first part of 
the evening. If it had not been for her father’s wishes she 
would much rather have stayed at home ; but, nevertheless, 
she talked even to the irresponsive old dowager, and fairly 
chatted to her father when she got beside him, because she 
did not like him to fancy that she was not enjoying herself. 

And, indeed, she had so much happiness in the daily 
course of this part of her life, that, on looking back upon it 

444 


A Dark Night’s Work 

afterwards, she could not imagine anything brighter than it 
had been. The delight of receiving her lover’s letters — the 
anxious happiness of replying to them (always a little bit 
fearful lest she should not express herself and her love in 
the precisely happy medium becoming a maiden) — the 
father’s love and satisfaction in her — the calm prosperity of 
the whole household — was delightful at the time, and, looking 
back upon it, it was dreamlike. 

Occasionally Mr. Corbet came down to see her. He 
always slept on these occasions at Mr. Ness’s ; but he was at 
Ford Bank the greater part of the one day between two 
nights that he allowed himself for the length of his visits. 
And even these short peeps were not frequently taken. He 
was working hard at law : fagging at it tooth and nail ; 
arranging his whole life so as best to promote the ends of his 
ambition ; feeling a delight in surpassing and mastering his 
fellows — those who started in the race at the same time. 
He read Ellinor’s letters over and over again ; nothing else 
besides law-books. He perceived the repressed love hidden 
away in subdued expressions in her communications, with 
an amused pleasure at the attempt at concealment. He was 
glad that her gaieties were not more gay ; he was glad that 
she was not too much admired, although a little indignant 

at the want of taste on the part of the shire gentlemen. 

But, if other admirers had come prominently forward, he 
would have had to take some more decided steps to assert 
his rights than he had hitherto done; for he had caused 
Ellinor to express a wish to her father, that her engagement 
should not be too much talked about until nearer the time 
when it would be prudent for him to marry her. He thought 
that the knowledge of this, the only imprudently hasty step 
he ever meant to take in his life, might go against his 
character for wisdom, if the fact became known while he was 
yet only a student. Mr. Wilkins wondered a little, but 
acceded, as he always did, to any of Ellinor’s requests. Mr. 
Ness was a confidant, of course, and some of Lady Maria’s 
connections heard of it, and forgot it again very soon; and, 

445 


A Dark Night’s Work 

as it happened, no one else was sufficiently interested in 
Ellinor to care to ascertain the fact. 

All this time, Mr. Ealph Corbet maintained a very 
quietly decided attitude towards his own family. He was 
engaged to Miss Wilkins ; and all he could say was, he felt 
sorry that they disapproved of it. He was not able to marry 
just at present, and before the time for his marriage arrived 
he trusted that his family would take a more reasonable 
view of things, and be willing to receive her as his wife with 
all becoming respect or affection. This was the substance 
of what he repeated in different forms, in reply to his father’s 
angry letters. At length, his invariable determination made 
way with his father ; the paternal thunderings were subdued 
to a distant rumbling in the sky ; and presently the inquiry 
was broached as to how much fortune Miss Wilkins would 
have ; how much down on her marriage ; what were the; 
eventual probabilities. Now this was a point which Mr, 
Ealph Corbet himself wished to be informed upon. He had 
not thought much about it in making the engagement ; he 
had been too young, or too much in love. But an only child 
of a wealthy attorney ought to have something considerable ; 
and an allowance so as to enable the young couple to start 
housekeeping in a moderately good part of town, would 
be an advantage to him in his profession. So he replied to 
his father, adroitly suggesting that a letter, containing certain 
modifications of the inquiry which had been rather roughly 
put in Mr. Corbet’s last, should be sent to him, in order that 
he might himself ascertain from Mr. Wilkins what were 
Ellinor’s prospects as regarded fortune. 

The desired letter came : but not in such a form that he 
could pass it on to Mr. Wilkins ; he preferred to make 
quotations, and even these quotations were a little altered 
and dressed before he sent them on. The gist of his letter 
to Mr. Wilkins was this. He stated that he hoped soon to 
be in a position to offer Ellinor a home ; that he anticipated 
a steady progress in his profession, and consequently in his 
income; but that contingencies might arise, as his father 

446 


A Dark Night’s Work 

suggested, which would deprive him of the power of earning 
a livelihood, perhaps when it might be more required than 
it would be at first; that it was true that, after his mother’s 
death, a small estate in Shropshire would come to him as 
second son, and of course Ellinor would receive the benefit 
of this property, secured to her legally as Mr. Wilkins 
thought best — that being a matter for after discussion — but 
that at present his father was anxious, as might be seen from 
the extract, to ascertain whether Mr. Wilkins could secure 
him from the contingency of having his son’s widow and 
possible children thrown upon his hands, by giving Ellinor 
a dowry ; and if so, it was gently insinuated, what would be 
the amount of the same ? 

When Mr. Wilkins received this letter, it startled him out 
of a happy day-dream. He liked Ealph Corbet and the 
whole connection quite well enough to give his consent to 
an engagement ; and sometimes even he was glad to think 
that Ellinor’ s future was assured, and that she would have 
a protector and friends after he was dead and gone. But he 
did not want them to assume their responsibilites so soon. 
He had not distinctly contemplated her marriage as an event 
likely to happen before his death. He could not understand 
how his own life would go on without her : or indeed why 
she and Ealph Corbet could not continue just as they were 
at present. He came down to breakfast with the letter in 
his hand. By Ellinor’s blushes, as she glanced at the hand- 
writing, he knew that she had heard from her lover by the 
same post ; by her tender caresses — caresses given as if to 
make up for the pain which the prospect of her leaving him 
was sure to cause him — he was certain that she was aware 
of the contents of the letter. Yet he put it in his pocket, 
and tried to forget it. 

He did this not merely from his reluctance to complete 
any arrangements which might facilitate Ellinor’s marriage. 
There was a further annoyance connected with the affair. 
His money matters had been for some time in an involved 
state ; he had been living beyond his income, even reckoning 

447 


A Dark Night’s Work 

that, as he always did, at the highest point which it ever 
touched. He kept no regular accounts, reasoning with 
himself — or, perhaps, I should rather say persuading himself 
— that there was no great occasion for regular accounts, 
when he had a steady income arising from his profession, as 
well as the interest of a good sum of money left him by his 
father ; and when, living in his own house near a country 
town where provisions were cheap, his expenditure for his 
small family — only one child — could never amount to any- 
thing like his incomings from the above-mentioned sources. 
But servants and horses, and choice wines and rare fruit- 
trees, and a habit of purchasing any book or engraving that 
may take the fancy, irrespective of the price, run away with 
money, even though there be but one child. A year or two 
ago, Mr. Wilkins had been startled into a system of exagge- 
rated retrenchment — retrenchment which only lasted about 
six weeks — by the sudden bursting of a bubble speculation 
in which he had invested a part of his father’s savings. But, 
as soon as the change in his habits, necessitated by his new 
economies, became irksome, he had comforted himself for 
his relapse into his former easy extravagance of living by 
remembering the fact that Elhnor was engaged to the son 
of a man of large property : and that, though Ealph was only 
the second son, yet his mother’s estate must come to him, 
as Mr. Ness had already mentioned, on first hearing of her 
engagement. 

Mr. Wilkins did not doubt that he could easily make 
Ellinor a fitting allowance, or even pay down a requisite 
dowry ; but the doing so would involve an examination into 
the real state of his affairs, and this involved distasteful 
trouble. He had no idea how much more than mere 
temporary annoyance would arise out of the investigation. 
Until it was made, he decided in his own mind that he 
would not speak to Ellinor on the subject of her lover’s 
letter. So for the next few days she was kept in suspense, 
seeing little of her father; and during the short times she 
was with him she was made aware that he was nervously 

448 


A Dark Night’s Work 

anxious to keep the conversation engaged on general topics 
rather than on the one which she had at heart. As I have 
already said, Mr. Corbet had written to her by the same post 
as that on which he sent the letter to her father, telling her 
of its contents, and begging her (in all those sweet words 
which lovers know how to use) to urge her father to com- 
pliance for his sake— his, her lover’s — who was pining and 
lonely in all the crowds of London, since her loved presence 
was not there. He did not care for money, save as a means 
of hastening their marriage ; indeed, if there were only some 
income fixed, however small — some time for their marriage 
fixed, however distant — he could be patient. He did not 
want superfluity of wealth ; his habits were simple, as she 
well knew ; and money enough would be theirs in time, both 
from her share of contingencies and from the certainty of 
his finally possessing Bromley. 

Ellinor delayed replying to this letter until her father 
should have spoken to her on** the subject. But, as she per- 
ceived that he avoided all such conversation, the young girl’s 
heart failed her. She began to blame herself for wishing to 
leave him, to reproach herself for being accessory to any 
step which made him shun being alone ’with her, and look 
distressed and full of care as he did now. It was the usual 
struggle between father and lover for the possession of love, 
instead of the natural and graceful resignation of the parent 
to the prescribed course of things ; and, as usual, it was the 
poor girl who bore the suffering for no fault of her own: 
although she blamed herself for being the cause of the dis- 
turbance in the previous order of affairs. Ellinor had no one 
to speak to confidentially but her father and her lover, and 
when they were at issue she could talk openly to neither ; so 
she brooded over Mr. Corbet’s unanswered letter, and her 
father’s silence, and became pale and dispirited. Once or 
twice she looked up suddenly, and caught her father’s eye 
gazing upon her with a certain wistful anxiety; but the 
instant she saw this he pulled himself up, as it were, and 
would begin talking gaily about the small topics of the day. 

449 


A Dark Night’s Work 

At length Mr. Corbet grew impatient at not hearing either 
from Mr. Wilkins or EUinor, and wrote urgently to the 
former, making known to him a new proposal suggested to 
him by his father, which was, that a certain sum should be 
paid down by Mr. Wilkins, to be applied, under the manage- 
ment of trustees, to the improvement of the Bromley estate, 
out of the profits of which, or other sources in the elder 
Mr. Corbet’s hands, a heavy rate of interest should be paid 
on this advance, which would secure an income to the young 
couple immediately, and considerably increase the value of 
the estate upon which Ellinor’s settlement was to be made. 
The terms offered for this laying down of ready money were 
so advantageous, that Mr. Wilkins was strongly tempted to 
accede to them at once, as Ellinor’s pale cheek and want 
of appetite had only that very morning smitten upon his 
conscience ; and this immediate transfer of ready money was 
as a sacrifice, a soothing balm to his self-reproach, and 
laziness and dislike to immediate unpleasantness of action 
had its counterbalancing weakness in imprudence. Mr. 
Wilkins made some rough calculations on a piece of paper — 
deeds, and all such tests of accuracy, being down at the 
office ; discovered that he could pay down the sum required ; 
wrote a letter agreeing to the proposal, and before he sealed 
it called Ellinor into his study, and bade her read what he 
had been writing and tell him what she thought of it. 
He watched the colour come rushing into her white face, 
her lips quiver and tremble, and even before the letter was 
ended she was in his arms kissing him, and thanking him 
with blushing caresses rather than words. 

“ There, there ! ” said he, smiling and sighing ; “ that 
will do. Why, I do believe you took me for a hard-hearted 
father, just like a heroine’s father in a book. You’ve looked 
as woe-begone this week past as Ophelia. One can’t make 
up one’s mind in a day about such sums of money as this, 
little woman ; and you should have let your old father have 
time to consider.” 

“ Oh^ papa ; I was only afraid you were angry.” 

450 


A Dark Night’s Work 

** Well, if I was a bit perplexed, seeing you look so ill 
and pining was not the way to bring me round. Old Corbet, 
I must say, is trying to make a good bargain for his son. It 
is well for me that I have never been an extravagant man.” 

“ But, papa, we don’t want all this much.” 

“ Yes, yes ! it is all right. You shall go into their family 
as a well-portioned girl, if you can’t go as a Lady Maria. 
Come, don’t trouble your little head any more about it. 
Give me one more kiss, and then we’ll go and order the 
horses, and have a ride together, by way of keeping hohday. 
I deserve a holiday, don’t I, Nelly ? ” 

Some country people at work at the roadside, as the 
father and daughter passed along, stopped to admire their 
bright, happy looks ; and one spoke of the hereditary hand- 
someness of the Wilkins family (for the old man, the present 
Mr. Wilkins’s father, had been fine-looking in his drab 
breeches and gaiters, and with his usual assumption of a 
yeoman’s dress). Another said it was easy for the rich to 
be handsome ; they had always plenty to eat, and could 
ride when they were tired of walking, and had no care for 
the morrow to keep them from sleeping at nights. And, in 
sad acquiescence with their contrasted lot, the men went 
on with their hedging and ditching in silence. 

And yet, if they had known — if the poor did know — the 
troubles and temptations of the rich ; if those men had 
foreseen the lot darkening over the father, and including the 
daughter in its cloud ; if Mr. Wilkins himself had even 
imagined such a future possible. . . . Well, there was truth 
in the old heathen saying, “ Let no man be envied till his 
death.” 

Ellinor had no more rides with her father ; no, not ever 
again ; though they had stopped that afternoon at the 
summit of a breezy common, and looked at a ruined hall, 
not so very far off, and discussed whether they could reach 
it that day, and decided that it was too far away for any- 
thing but a hurried inspection, and that some day soon they 
would make the old place into the principal object of an 

451 


A Dark Night’s Work 

excursion. But a rainy time came on, when no rides were 
possible ; and whether it was the influence of the weather, 
or that some other care or trouble oppressed him, Mr. 
Wilkins seemed to lose all wish for much active exercise, 
and rather sought a stimulus to his spirits and circulation in 
wine. But of this Ellinor was innocently unaware. He 
seemed dull and weary, and sat long, drowsing and drinking 
after dinner. If the servants had not been so fond of him 
for much previous generosity and kindness, they would have 
complained now, and with reason, of his irritability, for all 
sorts of things seemed to annoy him. 

“ You should get the master to take a ride with you, 
miss,” said Dixon one day, as he was putting Ellinor on her 
horse. “ He’s not looking well. He’s studying too much 
at the office.” 

But, when Ellinor named it to her father, he rather hastily 
replied that it was all very well for women to ride out when- 
ever they liked — men had something else to do ; and then, 
as he saw her look grave and puzzled, he softened down his 
abrupt saying by adding that Dunster had been making a fuss 
about his partner’s non-attendance, and altogether taking a 
good deal upon himself in a very offensive way, so that he 
thought it better to go pretty regularly to the office, in order 
to show him who was master — senior partner, and head of 
the business, at any rate. 

Ellinor sighed a little over her disappointment at her 
father’s preoccupation, and then forgot her own little regret 
in anger at Mr. Dunster, who had seemed all along to be a 
thorn in her father’s side, and had latterly gained some power 
and authority over him, the exercise of which, Ellinor could 
not help thinking, was a very impertinent line of conduct 
from a junior partner, so lately only a paid clerk, to his 
superior. There was a sense of something wrong in the 
Ford Bank household for many weeks about this time. Mr. 
Wilkins was not like himself, and his cheerful ways and 
careless genial speeches were missed, even on the days when 
he was not irritable, and evidently uneasy with himself and 

452 


A Dark Night’s Work 

all about him. The spring was late in coming, and cold rain 
and sleet made any kind of outdoor exercise a trouble and 
discomfort, rather than a bright natural event in the course 
of the day. All sound of winter gaieties, of assemblies and 
meets, and jovial dinners, had died away, and the summer 
pleasures were as yet unthought of. Still Ellinor had a 
secret perennial source of sunshine in her heart ; whenever 
she thought of Ealph she could not feel much oppression 
from the present unspoken and indistinct gloom. He loved 
her ; and oh, how she loved him ! and perhaps this very next 
autumn but that depended on his own success in his pro- 

fession. After all, if it was not this autumn it would be the 
next ; and with the letters that she received weekly, and the 
occasional visits that her lover ran down to Hamley to pay 
Mr. Ness, Ellinor felt as if she would almost prefer the delay 
of the time when she must leave her father’s for a husband’s 
roof. 


CHAPTEE VI 

At Easter — just when the heavens and earth were looking 
their dreariest, for Easter fell very early this year — Mr. Corhet 
came down. Mr. Wilkins was too busy to see much of him ; 
they were together even less than usual, although not less 
friendly when they did meet. But to Ellinor the visit was 
one of unmixed happiness. Hitherto she had always had a 
little fear mingled up with her love of Mr. Corbet ; but his 
manners were softened, his opinions less decided and abrupt, 
and his whole treatment of her showed such tenderness, that 
the young girl basked and revelled in it. One or two of their 
conversations had reference to their future married life in 
London ; and she then perceived, although it did not jar 
against her, that her lover had not forgotten his ambition in 
his love. He tried to inoculate her with something of his 

453 


A Dark Night’s Work 

own craving for success in life ; but it was all in vain : she 
nestled to him, and told him she did not care to be the Lord 
Chancellor’s wife — wigs and woolsacks were not in her line ; 
only, if he wished it, she would wish it. 

The last two days of his stay the weather changed. 
Sudden heat burst forth, as it does occasionally for a few 
hours even in our chilly English spring. The grey-brown 
bushes and trees started, almost with visible progress, into the 
tender green shade which is the forerunner of the bursting 
leaves. The sky was of full cloudless blue. Mr. Wilkins 
was to come home pretty early from the office, to ride out 
with his daughter and her lover; but, after waiting some 
time for him, it grew too late, and they were obliged to give 
up the project. Nothing would serve EUinor, then, but that 
she must carry out a table and have tea in the garden, on the 
sunny side of the tree, among the roots of which she used to 
play when a child. Miss Monro objected a little to this 
caprice of EUinor’s, saying that it was too early for out-of- 
door meals; but Mr. Corbet overruled all objections, and 
helped her in her gay preparations. She always kept to the 
early hours of her childhood, although she, as then, regularly 
sat with her father at his late dinner ; and this meal al fresco 
was to he a reality to her and Miss Monro. There was a 
place arranged for her father ; and she seized upon him, as he 
was coming from the stable-yard, by the shrubbery path, to 
his study, and with merry playfulness made him a prisoner, 
accusing him of disappointing them of their ride, and draw- 
ing him, more than half unwilling, to his chair by the table. 
But he was silent, and almost sad: his presence damped 
them all ; they could hardly tell why, for he did not object 
to anything, though he seemed to enjoy nothing, and only 
to force a smile at Ellinor’s occasional sallies. These be- 
came more and more rare as she perceived her father’s 
depression. She watched him anxiously. He perceived it, 
and said — shivering in that strange, unaccountable manner 
which is popularly explained by the expression that some one 
is passing over the earth that will one day form your grave — 

454 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Ellinor ! this is not a day for out-of-door tea. I never 
felt so chilly a spot in my life. I cannot keep from shaking 
where I sit . I must leave this place, my dear, in spite of all 
your good tea.” 

“ Oh, papa ! I am so sorry ! But look how full the hot 
sun’s rays come on this turf ! I thought I had chosen such 
a capital spot ! ” 

But he got up and persisted in leaving the table, although 
he was evidently sorry to spoil the little party. He walked 
up and down the gravel walk, close by them, talking to them 
as he kept passing by, and trying to cheer them up. 

“ Are you warmer now, papa ? ” asked Ellinor. 

“ Oh, yes ; all right ! It’s only that place that seems so 
chilly and damp. I’m as warm as a toast now.” 

The next morning Mr. Corbet left them. The unseason- 
ably fine weather passed away too, and all things went back 
to their rather grey and dreary aspect ; but Elhnor was too 
happy to feel this much, knowing what absent love existed 
for her alone, and from this knowledge unconsciously trust- 
ing in the sun behind the clouds. 

I have said that few or none in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of Hamley, beside their own household and Mr. Ness, 
knew of Ellinor’s engagement. At one of the rare dinner- 
parties to which she accompanied her father — it was at the 
old lady’s house who chaperoned her to the assemblies — she 
was taken in to dinner by a young clergyman staying in the 
neighbourhood. He had just had a small living given to 
him in his own county, and he felt as if this was a great step 
in his life. He was good, innocent, and rather boyish in 
appearance. Ellinor was happy and at her ease, and chatted 
away to this Mr. Livingstone on many little points of interest 
which they found they had in common : church music, and 
the difficulty they had in getting people to sing in parts ; 
Salisbury Cathedral, which they had both seen ; styles of 
church architecture ; Buskin’s works ; and parish schools, in 
which Mr. Livingstone was somewhat shocked to find that 
Ellinor took no great interest. When the gentlemen came 

455 


A Dark Night’s Work 

in from the dining-room, it struck Ellinor, for the first time 
in her life, that her father had taken more wine than was 
good for him. Indeed, this had rather become a habit with 
him of late ; but, as he always tried to go quietly off to his 
own room when such had been the case, his daughter had 
never been aware of it before, and the perception of it now 
made her cheeks hot with shame. She thought that every 
one must be as conscious of his altered manner and way of 
speaking as she was ; and, after a pause of sick silence, during 
which she could not say a word, she set to and talked 
to Mr. Livingstone about parish schools — anything, with 
redoubled vigour and apparent interest, in order to keep one 
or two of the company, at least, from noticing what was to 
her so painfully obvious. 

The effect of her behaviour was far more than she had 
intended. She kept Mr. Livingstone, it is true, from observing 
her father ; but she also riveted his attention on herself. He 
had thought her very pretty and agreeable during dinner; 
but after dinner he considered her bewitching, irresistible. 
He dreamed of her all night, and wakened up the next morn- 
ing to a calculation of how far his income would allow him 
to furnish his pretty new parsonage with that crowning 
blessing, a wife. For a day or two he did up little sums, 
and sighed, and thought of Ellinor, her face listening with 
admiring interest to his sermons, her arm passed into his 
as they went together round the parish; her sweet voice 
instructing classes in his schools — turn where he would, in 
his imagination Ellinor’ s presence rose up before him. 

The consequence was that he wrote an offer, which he 
found a far more perplexing piece of composition than a 
sermon : a real hearty expression of love, going on, over all 
obstacles, to a straightforward explanation of his present 
prospects and future hopes, and winding up with the inform- 
ation, that on the succeeding morning he would call to 
know whether he might speak to Mr. Wilkins on the subject 
of this lettei;. It was given to Ellinor in the evening, as she 
was sitting with Miss Monro in the library. Mr. Wilkins 

456 


A Dark Night’s Work 

was dining out, she hardly knew where, as it was a sudden 
engagement, of which he had sent word from the office — a 
gentlemen’s dinner-party, she supposed, as he had dressed 
in Hamley without coming home. Ellinor turned over the 
letter when it was brought to her, as some people do when 
they cannot recognise the handwriting, as if to discover from 
paper or seal what two moments would assure them of, if 
they opened the letter and looked at the signature. Ellinor 
could not guess who had written it by any outward sign ; 
but, the moment she saw the name “ Herbert Livingstone,” 
the meaning of the letter flashed upon her, and she coloured 
all over. She put the letter away, unread, for a few minutes, 
and then made some excuse for leaving the room and going 
upstairs. When safe in her bedchamber, she read the young 
man’s eager words with a sense of self-reproach. How 
must she, engaged to one man, have been behaving to 
another, if this was the result of a single evening’s interview ? 
The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed ; but with that we 
have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable ; and 
at last went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, 
and rummage up words in the dictionary. All the time she 
seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on with her Italian 
more diligently and sedately than usual, she was planning in 
her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned 
(and he had said that he should not be late), and beg him to 
undo the mischief she had done by seeing Mr. Livingstone 
the next morning, and frankly explaining the real state of 
affairs to him. But she wanted to read her letter again, 
and think it all over in peace ; and so, at an early hour, 
she wished Miss Monro good-night, and went up into her 
own room above the drawing-room, overlooking the flower- 
garden and shrubbery-path to the stable-yard, by which her 
father was sure to return. She went upstairs and studied 
her letter well, and tried to recall all her speeches and con- 
duct on that miserable evening — as she thought it then — not 
knowing what true misery was. Her head ached ; and she 
put out the candle, and went and sat on the window-seat, 

457 


A Dark Night’s Work 

looking out into the moonlit garden, watching for her father. 
She opened the window : partly to cool her forehead, partly 
to enable her to call down softly when she should see him 
coming along. By-and-by, the door from the stable-yard 
into the shrubbery clicked and opened, and in a moment she 
saw Mr. Wilkins moving through the bushes ; but not alone. 
Mr. Dunster was with him ; and the two were talking together 
in rather excited tones, immediately lost to hearing, however, 
as they entered Mr. Wilkins’s study by the outer door. 

“ They have been dining together somewhere. Probably 
at Mr. Hanbury’s ” (the Hamley brewer), thought Ellinor. 
“ But how provoking that he should have come home with 
papa, this night of all nights ! ” 

Two or three times before, Mr. Dunster had called on 
Mr. Wilkins in the evening, as Ellinor knew ; but she was 
not quite aware of the reason for such late visits, and had 
never put together the two facts — as cause and consequence 
— that on such occasions her father had been absent from the 
office all day, and that there might be necessary business for 
him to transact, the urgency of which was the motive for 
Mr. Dunster’s visits. Mr. Wilkins always seemed to be 
annoyed by his coming at so late an hour, and spoke of it, 
resenting the intrusion upon his leisure ; and Ellinor, with- 
out consideration, adopted her father’s mode of speaking and 
thinking on the subject, and was rather more angry than he 
was, whenever the obnoxious partner came on business in the 
evening. This night was, of all nights, the most ill-purposed 
time (so Ellinor thought) for a tete-a-tete with her father! 
However, there was no doubt in her mind as to what she 
had to do. So late as it was, the unwelcome visitor could 
not stop long; and then she would go down and have her 
little confidence with her father, and beg him to see Mr. 
Livingstone when he came next morning, and dismiss him 
as gently as might be. 

She sat on in the window-seat, dreaming waking dreams 
of future happiness. She kept losing herself in such thoughts, 
and became almost afraid of forgetting why she sat there. 

458 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Presently she felt cold, and got up to fetch a shawl, in which 
she muffled herself and resumed her place. It seemed to 
her growing very late ; the moonlight was coming fuller and 
I fuller into the garden, and the blackness of the shadow was 
more concentrated and stronger. Surely Mr. Dunster could 
not have gone away along the dark shrubbery-path so noise- 
lessly but what she must have heard him ? No ! there was 
the swell of voices coming up through the window from her 
father’s study : angry voices they were ; and her anger rose 
sympathetically, as she knew that her father was being irri- 
tated. There was a sudden movement, as of chairs pushed 
hastily aside, and then a mysterious unaccountable noise — 
heavy, sudden; and then a slight movement as of chairs 
again; and then a profound stillness. Ellinor leaned her 
head against the side of the window to listen more intently, 
for some mysterious instinct made her sick and faint. No 
sound — no noise ! Only by-and-by she heard, what we have 
all heard at such times of intent listening, the beating of the 
pulses of her heart, and then the whirling rush of blood 
through her head. How long did this last? She never 
knew. By-and-by she heard her father’s hurried footstep in 
his bedroom, next to hers; but when she ran thither to 
speak to him, and ask him what was amiss — if anything had 
been — if she might come to him now about Mr. Livingstone’s 
letter, she found that he had gone down again to his study, 
and almost at the same moment she heard the little private 
outer door of that room open ; some one went out, and then 
there were hurried footsteps along the shrubbery-path. She 
thought, of course, that it was Mr. Dunster leaving the 
house ; and went back for Mr. Livingstone’s letter. Having 
found it, she passed through her father’s room to the private 
staircase, thinking that, if she went by the more regular 
way, she would nm the risk of disturbing Miss Monro, and 
perhaps of being questioned in the morning. Even in 
passing down this remote staircase, she trod softly for fear 
of being overheard. When she entered the room, the full 
light of the candles dazzled her for an instant, coming out 

459 


A Dark Night’s Work 

of the darkness. They were flaring wildly in the draught 
that came in through the open door, by which the outer air 
was admitted ; for a moment there seemed no one in the 
room — and then she saw, with strange sick horror, the legs 
of some one lying on the carpet behind the table. As if 
compelled, even while she shrank from doing it, she went 
round to see who it was that lay there so still and motionless 
as never to stir at her sudden coming. It was Mr. Dunster ; 
his head propped on chair-cushions, his eyes open, staring, 
distended. There was a strong smell of brandy and harts- 
horn in the room ; a smell so powerful as not to be neutralised 
by the free current of night air that blew through the two 
open doors. Ellinor could not have told whether it was 
reason or instinct that made her act as she did during this 
awful night. When afterwards, notwithstanding her shud- 
dering avoidance of it, the haunting memory would come and 
overshadow her, during many, many years of her life, she 
grew to believe that the powerful smell of the spilt brandy 
absolutely intoxicated her — an unconscious Eechabite in 
practice. But something gave her a presence of mind and 
a courage not her own. And, though she learnt to think 
afterwards that she had acted unwisely, if not wrongly and 
wickedly, yet she marvelled, in recalling that time, how she 
could have then behaved as she did. First of all she lifted 
herself up from her fascinated gaze at the dead man, and 
went to the staircase door, by which she had entered the 
study, and shut it softly. Then she went back — looked 
again ; took the brandy-bottle, and knelt down, and tried to 
pour some into the mouth ; but this she found she could not 
do. Then she wetted her handkerchief with the spirit, and 
moistened the lips ; all to no purpose ; for, as I have said 
before, the man was dead — killed by the rupture of a vessel of 
the brain ; how occasioned, I must tell by-and-by. Of course, 
all Ellinor’s little cares and efforts produced no effect ; her 
father had tried them before — vain endeavours all, to bring 
back the precious breath of life ! The poor girl could not 
bear the look of those open eyes, and softly, tenderly, tried 

460 


A Dark Night’s Work 

to close them, although unconscious that, in so doing, she 
was rendering the pious offices of some beloved hand to a 
dead man. She was sitting by the body on the floor, when 
she heard steps coming with rushing and yet cautious tread, 
through the shrubbery ; she had no fear, although it might 
be the tread of robbers and murderers. The awfulness of 
the hour raised her above common fears ; though she did 
not go through the usual process of reasoning, and by it feel 
assured that the feet which were coming so softly and 
swiftly along were the same which she had heard leaving 
the room in like manner, only a quarter of an hour before. 

Her father entered, and started back, almost upsetting 
some one behind him by his recoil, on seeing his daughter in 
her motionless attitude by the dead man. 

** My God, Ellinor ! what has brought you here ? ’* he 
said, almost fiercely. 

But she answered as one stupefied — 

“ I don’t know. Is he dead ? ” 

“ Hush, hush, child ; it cannot be helped.” 

She raised her eyes to the solemn, pitying, awe-stricken 
face behind her father’s— the countenance of Dixon. 

“ Is he dead ? ” she asked of him. 

The man stepped forwards, respectfully pushing his 
master on one side as he did so. He bent down over the 
corpse, and looked, and listened ; and then, reaching a candle 
off the table, he signed Mr. Wilkins to close the door. And 
Mr. Wilkins obeyed, and looked with an intensity of eager- 
ness almost amounting to faintness on the experiment ; and 
yet he could not hope. The flame was steady — steady and 
pitilessly unstirred, even when it was adjusted close to mouth 
and nostril; the head was raised up by one of Dixon’s 
stalwart arms, while he held the candle in the other hand. 
Ellinor fancied that there was some trembling on Dixon’s 
part, and grasped his wrist tightly, in order to give it the 
requisite motionless firmness. 

All in vain. The head was placed again on the cushions ; 
the servant rose and stood by his master, looked sadly on 

461 


A Dark Night’s Woric 

the dead man, whom, living, none of them had liked or cared 
for ; and Ellinor sat on, quiet and tearless, as one in a trance. 

“ How was it, father? ” at length she asked. 

He would fain have had her ignorant of all; but, so 
questioned by her lips, so adjured by her eyes, in the very 
presence of death, he could not choose but speak the truth ; 
he spoke it in convulsive gasps, each sentence an effort — 

** He taunted me — he was insolent, beyond my patience 
— I could not bear it. I struck him — I can’t tell how it was. 
He must have hit his head in falling. Oh, my God! one 
little hour ago I was innocent of this man’s blood ! ** He 
covered his face with his hands. 

Ellinor took the candle again ; kneeling behind Mr. 
Dunster’s head, she tried the futile experiment once more. 

** Could not a doctor do some good ? ” she asked of Dixon, 
in a hopeless voice. 

“ No ! ” said he, shaking his head, and looking with a 
sidelong glance at his master, who seemed to shrivel up and 
to shrink away at the bare suggestion. “Doctors can do 
nought, I’m afeard. All that a doctor could do, I take it, 
would be to open a vein ; and that I could do along with the 
best of them, if I had but my fleam here.” He fumbled in his 
pockets as he spoke, and, as chance would have it, the “ fleam” 
(or cattle-lancet) was somewhere about his dress. He 
drew it out, and smoothed and tried it on his finger. Ellinor 
tried to bare the arm, but turned sick as she did so. Her 
father started eagerly forwards, and did what was necessary 
with hurried trembling hands. If they had cared less about 
the result, they might have been more afraid of the con- 
sequences of the operation in the hands of one so ignorant 
as Dixon. But, vein or artery, it signified little ; no living 
blood gushed out ; only a little watery moisture followed the 
cut of the fleam. They laid him back on his strange, sad 
death-couch. Dixon spoke next. 

“ Master Ned 1 ” said he — for he had known Mr. Wilkins 
in his days of bright careless boyhood, and almost was 
carried back to them by the sense of charge and protection 

462 


A Dark Night’s Work 

which the servant’s presence of mind and sharpened senses 
i gave him over his master on this dreary night — “ Master 
Ned ! we must do summut.” 

I No one spoke. What was to be done ? 

“ Did any folk see him come here ? ” Dixon asked, after 
a time. EUinor looked up to hear her father’s answer, a 
wild hope coming into her mind that all might be concealed 
somehow ; she did not know how, nor did she think of any 
consequences except saving her father from the vague dread, 
trouble, and punishment that she was aware would await 
him, if all were known. 

Mr. Wilkins did not seem to hear; in fact, he did not 
i hear anything but the unspoken echo of his own last words, 
that went booming through his heart : “An hour ago I was 
innocent of this man’s blood ! Only an hour ago ! ” 

Dixon got up and poured out half a tumblerful of raw 
spirit from the brandy-bottle that stood on the table. 

“ Drink this. Master Ned ! ’’ putting it to his master’s 
bps. “Nay ” — to EUinor — “ it will do him no harm ; only 
bring back his senses, which, poor gentleman, are scared 
away. We shaU need all our wits. Now, sir, please answer 
my question ! Did any one see Measter Dunster come here ? ” 
“ I don’t know,” said Mr. Wilkins, recovering his speech. 

I : “ It aU seems in a mist. He offered to walk home with me ; 
I ; I did not want him. I was almost rude to him, to keep him 
i off. I did not want to talk of business; I had taken too 
,! much wine to be very clear, and some things at the ofi&ce 
I were not quite in order, and he had found it out. If any 
■ ^ one heard our conversation, they must know I did not want 
, 1 him to come with me. Oh ! why would he come ! He was 
I as obstinate — he would come — and here it has been his 
! death!” 

L “WeU, sir, what’s done can’t be undone, and I’m sure 
I we’d any of us bring him back to life if we could, even by 
i' cutting off our hands, though he was a mighty plaguey chap 
while he’d breath in him. But what I’m thinking is this : 
it’ll maybe go awkward with you, sir, if he’s found here. 

463 


A Dark Night’s Work 

One can’t say. But don’t you think, miss, as he’s neither 
kith nor kin to miss him, we might just bury him away 
before morning, somewhere ? There’s better nor four hours 
of dark. I wish we could put him i’ the churchyard, but 
that can’t be; but, to my mind, the sooner we set about 
digging a place for him to lie in, poor fellow, the better it’ll 
be for us all in the end. I can pare a piece of turf up where 
it’ll never be missed ; and, if master ’ll take one spade, and I 
another, why, we’ll lay him softly down, and cover him up ; 
and no one ’ll be the wiser.” 

There was no reply from either for a minute or so. Then 
Mr. Wilkins said — 

“ If my father could have known of my living to this ! 
Why, they will try me as a criminal ; and you, EUinor ! 
Dixon, you are right. We must conceal it, or I must cut 
my throat, for I never could live through it. One minute of 
passion, and my life blasted ! ” 

** Come along, sir,” said Dixon ; “there’s no time to lose.” 
And they went out in search of tools ; EUinor following them, 
shivering all over, but begging that she might be with them, 
and not have to remain in the study with 

She would not be bidden into her own room ; she dreaded 
inaction and solitude. She made herself busy with carrying 
heavy baskets of turf, and straining her strength to the 
utmost ; fetching all that was wanted, with soft swift steps. 

Once, as she passed near the open study door, she thought 
that she heard a rustling, and a flash of hope came across 
her. Could he be reviving? She entered, but a moment 
was enough to undeceive her ; it had only been a night rustle 
among the trees. Of hope, life, there was none. 

They dug the hole deep and well; working with fierce 
energy to quench thought and remorse. Once or twice, her 
father asked for brandy, which EUinor, reassured by the 
apparently good effect of the first dose, brought to him with- 
out a word ; and once, at her father’s suggestion, she brought 
food, such as she could find in the dining-room without ^s- 
turbing the household, for Dixon. 

464 


A Dark Night’s Work 

When all was ready for the reception of the body in its 
unblessed grave, Mr. Wilkins bade Ellinor go up to her own 
room — she had done all she could to help them; the rest 
must be done by them alone. She felt that it must ; and, 
indeed, both her nerves and her bodily strength were giving 
way. She would have kissed her father, as he sat wearily at 
the head of the grave — Dixon had gone in to make some 
arrangement for carrying the corpse — but he pushed her 
away quietly, but resolutely — 

“No, Nelly, you must never kiss me again ; I am a 
murderer.” 

“ But I will, my own darling papa,” said she, throwing 
her arms passionately round his neck, and covering his face 
with kisses. “ I love you, and I don’t care what you are — if 
you were twenty times a murderer, which you are not ; I am 
sure it was only an accident.” 

“ Go in, my child, go in, and try to get some rest ! But 
go in ; for we must finish as fast as we can. The moon is 
down ; it will soon be daylight. What a blessing there are 
no other bed-rooms on this side of the house. Go, Nelly ! ” 
And she went; straining herself up to move noiselessly, 
with eyes averted, through the room which she shuddered 
at as the place of hasty and unhallowed death. 

Once in her own room, she bolted the door on the inside, 
and then stole to the window, as if some fascination impelled 
her to watch all the proceedings to the end. But her aching 
eyes could hardly penetrate through the thick darkness which, 
at the time of the year of which I am speaking, so closely 
precedes the dawn. She could discern the tops of the trees 
against the sky, and could single out the well-known one, at 
a little distance from the stem of which the grave was made, 
in the very piece of turf over which so lately she and Ealph 
had had their merry little tea-making ; and where her father, 
as she now remembered, had shuddered and shivered, as if 
the ground on which his seat had then been placed was 
fateful and ominous to him. 

Those below moved softly and quietly in all they did ; but 
465 2 H 


A Dark Night’s Work 

every sound had a significant and terrible interpretation to 
Ellinor’s ears. Before they had ended, the little birds had 
begun to pipe out their gay reveille to the dawn. Then doors 
closed, and all was profoundly still. 

Ellinor threw herself, in her clothes, on the bed, and was 
thankful for the intense weary physical pain which took off 
something of the anguish of thought — anguish that she 
fancied from time to time was leading to insanity. 

By-and-by, the morning cold made her instinctively 
creep between the blankets ; and, once there, she fell into a 
dead heavy sleep. 


CHAPTEE VII 

Ellinor was awakened by a rapping at her door: it was 
her maid. 

She was fully aroused in a moment, for she had fallen 
asleep with one clearly defined plan in her mind — only one, 
for all thoughts and cares having no relation to the terrible 
event were as though they had never been. All her purpose 
was to shield her father from suspicion. And, to do this, she 
must control herself — heart, mind, and body must be ruled 
to this one end. 

So she said to Mason — 

“ Let me lie half-an-hour longer ; and beg Miss Monro 
not to wait breakfast for me ; but in half-an-hour bring me 
up a cup of strong tea, for I have a bad headache.” 

Mason went away. Ellinor sprang up ; rapidly un- 
dressed herself, and got into bed again, so that when her 
maid returned with her breakfast, there was no appearance 
of the night having been passed in any unusual manner. 

“ How ill you do look, miss ! ” said Mason. “ I am sure 
you had better not get up yet.” 

Ellinor longed to ask if her father had yet shown 
466 


A Dark Night’s Work 

himself; but this question— so natural at any other time — 
seemed to her so suspicious under the circumstances, that 
she could not bring her lips to frame it. At any rate, she 
must get up and struggle to make the day like all other 
days! So she rose, confessing that she did not feel' very 
well, but trying to make light of it and, when she could 
think of anything but the one awe, to say a trivial sentence 
or two. But she could not recollect how she behaved in 
general ; for her life hitherto had been simple and led 
without any consciousness of effect. 

Before she was dressed, a message came up to say that 
Mr. Livingstone was in the drawing-room. 

Mr. Livingstone ! He belonged to the old life of 
yesterday ! The billows of the night had swept over his 
mark on the sands of her memory ; and it was only by a 
strong eflfort that she could remember who he was — what he 
^ wanted. She sent Mason down to inquire from the servant 
‘ who admitted him whom it was that he had asked for. 

“ He asked for master first. But master has not rung 
for his water yet, so James told him he was not up. Then 
he took thought for a while, and asked could he speak to you ; 
he would wait if you were not at liberty, but that he wished 
particular to see either master, or you. So James asked 
him to sit down in the drawing-room, and he would let 
you know.” 

“ I must go,” thought Ellinor. “ I will send him away 
directly ; to come, thinking of marriage, to a house like this 
— to-day, too 1 ” 

And she went down hastily, and in a hard unsparing 
mood towards a man, whose affection for her she thought 
was like a gourd, grown up in a night, and of no account, 

' but as a piece of foolish, boyish excitement. 

I She never thought of her own appearance — she had 
dressed without looking in the glass. Her only object was 
to dismiss her would-be suitor as speedily as possible. All 
i feelings of shyness, awkwardness, or maiden modesty, were 
i quenched and overcome. In she went. 

467 


A Dark Night’s Work 

He was standing by the mantelpiece as she entered. He 
made a step or two forward to meet her, and then stopped — 
petrified, as it were, at the sight of her hard white face. 

“ Miss Wilkins, I am afraid you are ill ! I have come 
too early. But I have to leave Hamley in half-an-hour, and 
I thought Oh, Miss Wilkins ! what have I done ? ” 

For she sank into the chair nearest to her, as if overcome 
by his words ; but, indeed, it was by the oppression of her 
own thoughts : she was hardly conscious of his presence. 

He came a step or two nearer, as if he longed to take 
her in his arms and comfort and shelter her; but she 
stiffened herself and arose, and by an effort walked towards 
the fireplace, and there stood, as if awaiting what he would 
say next. But he was overwhelmed by her aspect of illness. 
He almost forgot his own wishes, his own suit, in his desire 
to relieve her from the pain, physical as he believed it, 
under which she was suffering. It was she who had to 
begin the subject. 

“ I received your letter yesterday, Mr. Livingstone. I 
was anxious to see you to-day, in order that I might prevent 
you from speaking to my father. I do not say anything of 
the kind of affection you can feel for me — me, whom you 
have only seen once. All I shall say is, that the sooner we 
both forget what I must call folly, the better.” 

She took the airs of a woman considerably older and 
more experienced than himself. He thought her haughty ; 
she was only miserable. 

“ You are mistaken,” said he, more quietly and with 
more dignity than was likely from his previous conduct. 
“ I will not allow you to characterise as folly what might be 
presumptuous on my part — I had no business to express 
myself so soon — but what in its foundation was true and 
sincere. That I can answer for most solemnly. It is possible, 
though it may not be a usual thing, for a man to feel so 
strongly attracted by the charms and qualities of a woman, 
even at first sight, as to feel sure that she, and she alone, 
can make his happiness. My folly consisted — there you are 

468 


A Dark Night’s Work 

right in even dreaming that you could return my feelings 
in the slightest degree, when you had only seen me once ; 
and I am most truly ashamed of myself. I cannot tell you 
how sorry I am, when I see how you have compelled your- 
self to come and speak to me when you are so ill.” 

She staggered into a chair ; for, with all her wish for his 
speedy dismissal, she was obliged to be seated. His hand 
was upon the bell. 

“ No, don’t ! ” she said. “ Wait a minute.” 

His eyes, bent upon her with a look of deep anxiety, 
touched her at that moment, and she was on the point of 
shedding tears ; but she checked herself, and rose again. 

** I will go,” said he. “ It is the kindest thing I can do. 
Only, may I write ! May I venture to write and urge what 
I have to say more coherently ? ” 

“ No ! ” said she. “ Don’t write. I have given you my 
answer. We are nothing, and can be nothing, to each other. 
I am engaged to be married. I should not have told you, if 
you had not been so kind. Thank you. But go now.” 

The poor young man’s face fell, and he became almost 
as white as she was, for the instant. After a moment’s 
reflection, he took her hand in his, and said — 

“ May God bless you, and him too, whoever he be ! But, 
if you want a friend, I may be that friend, may I not ? and 
try to prove that my words of regard are true, in a better 
and higher sense than I used them at first.” And, kissing 
her passive hand, he was gone; and she was left sitting 
alone. 

But solitude was not what she could bear. She went 
quickly upstairs, and took a strong dose of sal-volatile, even 
while she heard Miss Monro calling to her. 

“ My dear, who was that gentleman that has been closeted 
with you in the drawing-room all this time ? ” 

And then, without listening to Ellinor’s reply, she went 
on — 

“ Mrs. Jackson has been here ” (it was at Mrs. Jackson’s 
house that Mr. Punster lodged), “wanting to know if we 

469 


A Dark Night’s Work 

could tell her where Mr. Dunster was, for he never came 
home last night at all. And you were in the drawing-room 
with — who did you say he was ? — that Mr. Livingstone, who 
might have come at a better time to bid good-bye ; and he 
had never dined here, had he ? so I don’t see any reason he 
had to come calling, and P. P. C.-ing, and your papa not up. 
So I said to Mrs. Jackson, ‘ I’ll send and ask Mr. Wilkins, 
if you like ; but I don’t see any use in it, for I can tell you 
just as well as anybody, that Mr. Dunster is not in this 
house, wherever he may be.’ Yet nothing would satisfy her 
but that some one must go and waken up your papa, and 
ask if he could tell where Mr. Dunster was.” 

“ And did papa ? ” inquired Ellinor, her dry throat huskily 
forming the inquiry that seemed to be expected from her. 

“No! to be sure not. How should Mr. Wilkins know? 
As I said to Mrs. Jackson, ‘ Mr. Wilkins is not likely to 
know where Mr. Dunster spends his time when he is not 
in the office, for they do not move in the same rank of hfe, 
my good woman ’ ; and Mrs. Jackson apologised, but said 
that yesterday they had both been dining at Mr. Hodgson’s 
together, she believed ; and somehow she had got it into her 
head that Mr. Dunster might have missed his way in coming 
along Moore Lane, and might have slipped into the canal ; so 
she just thought she would step up and ask Mr. Wilkins if 
they had left Mr. Hodgson’s together, or if your papa had 
driven home. I asked her why she had not told me all these 
particulars before, for I could have asked your papa myself 
all about when he last saw Mr. Dunster ; and I went up to 
ask him a second time ; but he did not like it at all, for he 
was busy dressing, and I had to shout my questions through 
the door, and he could not always hear me at first.” 

“ What did he say ? ” 

“ Oh ! he had walked part of the way with Mr. Dunster, 
and then cut across by the short path through the fields, as 
far as I could understand him through the door. He seemed 
very much annoyed to hear that Mr. Dunster had not been 
at home all night ; but he said I was to tell Mrs. Jackson 

470 


A Dark Night’s Work 

that he would go to the ofl&ce as soon as he had had his 
breakfast, which he ordered to be sent up directly into his 
own room, and he had no doubt it would all turn out right ; 
but that she had better go home at once. And, as I told her, 
she might find Mr. Dunster there by the time she got there. 
There, there is your papa going out ! He has not lost any 
time over his breakfast ! ” 

Ellinor had taken up the HamUy Examiner ^ a daily paper, 
which lay on the table, to hide her face in the first instance ; 
but it served a second purpose, as she glanced languidly over 
the columns of the advertisements. 

“ Oh ! here are Colonel Macdonald’s orchideous plants to 
be sold ! All the stock of hothouse and stove plants at 
Hartwell Priory! I must send James over to Hartwell to 
attend the sale. It is to last for three days.” 

“ But can he be spared for so long ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; he had better stay at the little inn there, to 
be on the spot. Three days,” and as she spoke, she ran out 
to the gardener, who was sweeping up the newly- mown grass 
in the front of the house. She gave him hasty and unlimited 
directions, only seeming intent — if any one had been sus- 
piciously watching her words and actions — to hurry him off 
to the distant village, where the auction was to take place. 

When he was once gone, she breathed more freely. Now, 
no one but the three cognisant of the terrible reason of the 
disturbance of the turf under the trees in a certain spot in 
the belt round the flower-garden, would be likely to go into 
the place. Miss Monro might wander round with a book in 
her hand ; but she never noticed anything, and was short- 
sighted into the bargain. Three days of this moist, warm, 
growing weather, and the green grass would spring, just as 
if life — was what it had been twenty-four hours before. 

When all this was done and said, it seemed as if Ellinor’s 
strength and spirit sank down at once. Her voice became 
feeble, her aspect wan ; and, although she told Miss Monro 
that nothing was the matter, yet it was impossible for any one 
who loved her not to perceive that she was far from well. 

47 ^ 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The kind governess placed her pupil on the sofa, covered her 
feet up warmly, darkened the room, and then stole out on 
tiptoe, fancying that Elhnor would sleep. Her eyes were, 
indeed, shut ; but, try as much as she would to be quiet, she 
was up in less than five minutes after Miss Monro had left 
the room, and walking up and down in all the restless agony 
of body that arises from an overstrained mind. But soon 
Miss Monro reappeared, bringing with her a dose of soothing 
medicine of her own concocting, for she was great in domestic 
quackery. What the medicine was Ellinor did not care to 
know ; she drank it without any sign of her usual merry 
resistance to physic of Miss Monro’s ordering ; and, as the 
latter took up a book, and showed a set purpose of remaining 
with her patient, Ellinor was compelled to lie still, and 
presently fell asleep. 

She awakened late in the afternoon with a start. Her 
father was standing over her, listening to Miss Monro’s 
account of her indisposition. She only caught one glimpse 
of his strangely altered countenance, and hid her head in the 
cushions — hid it from memory, not from him. For in an 
instant she must have conjectured the interpretation he was 
likely to put upon her shrinking action, and she turned 
towards him, and had thrown her arms round his neck, 
and was kissing his cold, passive face. Then she fell back. 
But all this time their sad eyes never met — they dreaded the 
look of recollection that must be in each other’s gaze. 

“ There, my dear ! ” said Miss Monro. “Now you must 
lie still till I fetch you a little broth. You are better now, 
are not you ? ” 

“ You need not go for the broth. Miss Monro,” said Mr. 
Wilkins, ringing the bell. “Fletcher can surely bring it.” 
He dreaded the being left alone with his daughter — nor did 
she fear it less. She heard the strange alteration in her 
father’s voice, hard and hoarse, as if it was an effort to 
speak. The physical signs of his suffering cut her to the 
heart ; and yet she wondered how it was that they could both 
be alive, or that, if alive, they were not rending their garments 

473 


A Dark Night’s Work 

and crying aloud. Mr. Wilkins seemed to have lost the 
power of careless action and speech, it is true. He wished 
to leave the room, now his anxiety about his daughter was 
relieved, but hardly knew how to set about it. He was 
obliged to think about the veriest trifle, in order that by an 
effort of reason he might understand how he should have 
spoken or acted if he had been free from blood- guiltiness. 
Ellinor understood all by intuition. But henceforward the 
unspoken comprehension of each other’s hidden motions 
made their mutual presence a burdensome anxiety to each. 
Miss Monro was a relief ; they were glad of her as a third 
person, unconscious of the secret which constrained them- 
This afternoon her unconsciousness gave present pain, 
although on after reflection each found in her speeches a 
cause of rejoicing. 

“And Mr. Dunster, Mr. Wilkins, has he come home 
yet?” 

A moment’s pause, in which Mr. Wilkins pumped the 
words out of his husky throat — 

“ I have not heard. I have been riding. I went on 
business to Mr. Estcourt’s. Perhaps you will be so kind as 
to send and inquire at Mrs. Jackson’s.” 

Ellinor sickened at the words. She had been all her life 
a truthful, plain-spoken girl. She held herself high above 
deceit. Yet, here came the necessity for deceit — a snare 
spread around her. She had not revolted so much from the 
deed which brought unpremeditated death, as she did from 
these words of her father’s. The night before, in her mad 
fever of affright, she had fancied that to conceal the body 
was all that would be required ; she had not looked forward 
to the long, weary course of small lies, to be done and said, 
involved in that one mistaken action. Yet, while her father’s 
words made her soul revolt, his appearance melted her heart, 
as she caught it, half turned away from her, neither looking 
straight at Miss Monro, nor at anything materially visible. 
His hollow, sunken eye seemed to Ellinor to have a vision of 
the dead man before it. His cheek was livid and worn, and 

473 


A Dark Night’s Work 

its healthy colouring, gained by years of hearty outdoor 
exercise, was all gone into the wanness of age. His hair, 
even to EUinor, seemed greyer for the past night of wretched- 
ness. He stooped, and looked dreamily earthward, where 
formerly he had stood erect. It needed all the pity called 
forth by such observation to quench Ellinor’s passionate 
contempt for the course on which she and her father were 
embarked, when she heard him repeat his words to the 
servant who came with her broth. 

“Fletcher! go to Mrs. Jackson’s and inquire if Mr. 
Dunster is come home yet. I want to speak to him.” 

“To him!” lying dead where he had been laid; killed 
by the man who now asked for his presence ! Ellinor shut 
her eyes, and lay back in despair. She wished she might 
die, and be out of this horrible tangle of events. 

Two minues after, she was conscious of her father and 
Miss Monro stealing softly out of the room. They thought 
that she slept. 

She sprang off the sofa and knelt down. 

“ O God,” she prayed, “ Thou knowest ! Help me ! 
There is none other help but Thee 1 ” 

I suppose she fainted. For, an hour or more afterwards. 
Miss Monro, coming in, found her lying insensible by the 
side of the sofa. 

She was carried to bed. She was not delirious ; she was 
only in a stupor, which they feared might end in delirium. 
To obviate this, her father sent far and wide for skilful 
physicians, who tended her, almost at the rate of a guinea 
the minute. 

People said how hard it was upon Mr. Wilkins, that, 
scarcely had that wretch Dunster gone off, with no one 
knows how much out of the trusts of the firm, before his 
only child fell ill. And, to tell the truth, he himself looked 
burnt and seared with affliction. He had a startled look, 
they said, as if he never could tell, after such experience, 
from which side the awful proofs of the uncertainty of earth 
would appear, the terrible phantoms of unforeseen dread. 

474 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Both rich and poor, town and country, sympathised with 
him. The rich cared not to press their claims, or their 
business, at such a time, and only wondered, in the super- 
ficial talk after dinner, how such a good fellow as Wilkins 
could ever have been deceived by a man like Dunster. Even 
Sir Frank Holster and his lady forgot their old quarrel, and 
came to inquire after Ellinor, and sent her hothouse-fruit by 
the bushel. 

Mr. Corbet behaved as an anxious lover should do. He 
wrote daily to Miss Monro, to beg for the most minute 
bulletins ; he procured everything in town that any doctor 
even fancied might be of service. He came down, as soon 
as there was the slightest hint of permission that Ellinor 
might see him. He overpowered her with tender words and 
caresses, till at last she shrank away from them, as from 
something too bewildering and past all right comprehension. 

But one night before this, when all windows and doors 
stood open to admit the least breath that stirred the sultry 
July air, a servant on velvet tiptoe had stolen up to Ellinor’s 
open door, and had beckoned out of the chamber the ever- 
watchful nurse, Miss Munro. 

“ A gentleman wants you,” were all the words the house- 
maid dared to say so close to the bedroom. And softly, 
softly Miss Monro stepped down the stairs, into the drawing- 
room ; and there she saw Mr. Livingstone. But she did not 
know him ; she had never seen him before. 

“ I have travelled all day. I heard she was ill — was 
dying. May I just have one more look at her ? I will not 
speak; I will hardly breathe. Only let me see her once 
again ! ” 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t know who you are ; 
and if you mean Miss Wilkins by ‘ her,’ she is very ill, but 
we hope not dying. She was very ill, indeed, yesterday ; 
very dangerously ill, I may say, but she is having a good 
sleep, in consequence of a soporific medicine, and we are 
really beginning to hope ” 

But just here Miss Monro’s hand was taken, and, to her 
475 


A Dark Night’s Work 

infinite surprise, was kissed before she could remember how 
improper such behaviour was. 

“ God bless you, madam, for saying so ! But, if she 
sleeps, will you let me see her? it can do no harm, for I 
will tread as if on egg-shells ; and I have come so far — if I 
might just look on her sweet face 1 Pray, madam, let me 
just have one sight of her ; I will not ask for more.” 

But he did ask for more, after he had had his wish. He 
stole upstairs after Miss Monro, who looked round reproach- 
fully at him if even a nightingale sang, or an owl hooted, in 
the trees outside the open windows, yet who paused to say 
herself, outside Mr. Wilkins’s chamber door — 

“ Her father’s room ; he has not been in bed for six 
nights, till to-night; pray do not make a noise to waken 
him ! ” And on into the deep stillness of the hushed room, 
where one clear ray of hidden lamplight shot athwart the 
floor, where a watcher, breathing softly, sat beside the bed — 
where Ellinor’s dark head lay motionless on the white pillow, 
her face almost as white, her form almost as still. You 
might have heard a pin fall. After a while, he moved to 
withdraw. Miss Monro, jealous of every sound, followed 
him, with steps all the more heavy because they were taken 
with so much care, down the stairs, back into the drawing- 
room. By the bed- candle flaring in the draught, she saw 
that there was the glittering mark of wet tears on his cheek ; 
and she felt, as she said afterwards, “ sorry for the young 
man.” And yet she urged him to go, for she knew that she 
might be wanted upstairs. He took her hand, and wrung it 
hard. 

“ Thank you ! She looked so changed — oh ! she looked 
as though she were dead. You will write — Herbert Living- 
stone, Langham Vicarage, Yorkshire ; you will promise me 
to write ? If I could do anything for her — but I can but 
pray. Oh, my darling ; my darling ! and I have no right 
to be with her ! ” 

“ Go away, there’s a good young man,” said Miss Monro, 
all the more pressing to hurry him out by the front-door, 

476 


A Dark Night’s Work 

because she was afraid of his emotion overmastering him, 
and making him noisy in his demonstrations. “ Yes, I will 
write ; I will write, never fear ! ” and she bolted the door 
behind him, and was thankful. 

Two minutes afterwards there was a low tap ; she undid 
the fastenings, and there he stood, pale in the moonlight. 

“ Please don’t tell her I came to ask about her ; she 
might not like it.” 

“ No, no ! not I ! Poor creature, she’s not likely to care 
to hear anything this long while. She never roused at Mr. 
Corbet’s name.” 

“ Mr. Corbet’s ! ” said Livingstone, below his breath, and 
he turned and went away ; this time for good. 

But Ellinor recovered. She knew she was recovering, 
when day after day she felt involuntary strength and appe- 
tite return. Her body seemed stronger than her will; for 
that would have induced her to creep into her grave, and 
shut her eyes for ever on this world, so full of troubles. 

She lay, for the most part, with her eyes closed, very 
still and quiet ; but she thought with the intensity of one 
who seeks for lost peace, and cannqt find it. She began to 
see that, if, in the mad impulses of that mad nightmare of 
horror, they had all strengthened each other and dared to 
be frank and open, confessing a great fault, a greater disaster, 
a greater woe — ^which in the first instance was hardly a 
crime — their future course, though sad and sorrowful, would 
have been a simple and straightforward one to tread. But it 
was not for her to undo what was done, and to reveal the 
error and shame of a father. Only she, turning anew to 
God, in the solemn and quiet watches of the night, made a 
covenant, that in her conduct, her own personal individual 
life, she would act loyally and truthfully. And as for the 
future, and all the terrible chances involved in it, she would 
leave it in His hands — if, indeed (and here came in the 
Tempter), He would watch over one whose life hereafter 
must seem based upon a he. Her only plea, offered “ stand- 
ing afar-off,” was, “ The lie is said and done and over — it 

477 


A Dark Night’s Work 

was not for my own sake. Can filial piety be so overcome 
by the rights of justice and truth, as to demand of me that I 
should reveal my father’s guilt ? ” 

Her father’s severe sharp punishment began. He knew 
why she suffered, what made her young strength falter and 
tremble, what made her life seem nigh about to be quenched 
in death. Yet he could not take his sorrow and care in the 
natural manner. He was obliged to think how every word 
and deed would be construed. He fancied that people were 
watching him with suspicious eyes, when nothing was further 
from their thoughts. For, once let the “ public ” of any place 
be possessed by an idea, it is more difficult to dislodge it than 
any one imagines who has not tried. If Mr. Wilkins had 
gone into the Hamley market-place, and proclaimed himself 
guilty of the manslaughter of Mr. Punster — nay, if he had 
detailed all the circumstances — the people would have ex- 
claimed, “ Poor man, he is crazed by this discovery of the 
unworthiness of the man he trusted so ; and no wonder — it 
was such a thing to have done — to have defrauded his partner 
to such an extent, and then have made off to America 1 ” 

For many small circumstances, which I do not stop to 
detail here, went far to prove this, as we know, unfounded 
supposition; and Mr. Wilkins, who was known, from his 
handsome boyhood, through his comely manhood, up to the 
present time, by all the people in Hamley, was an object of 
sympathy and respect to every one who saw him, as he passed 
by, old, and lorn, and haggard before his time, aU through 
the evil conduct of one, London-bred, who was as a hard, 
unlovely stranger to the popular mind of this little country 
town. 

Mr. Wilkins’s own servants liked him. The workings of 
his temptations were such as they could understand. If he 
had been hot-tempered, he had also been generous, or I 
should rather say careless and lavish with his money. And, 
now that he was cheated and impoverished by his partner’s 
delinquency, they thought it no wonder that he drank long 
and deep in the solitary evenings which he passed at home. 

478 


A Dark Night’s Work 

It was not that he was without invitations. Every one came 
forward to testify their respect for him by asking him to their 
houses. He had probably never been so universally popular 
since his father’s death. But, as he said, he did not care to 
go into society while his daughter was so ill — he had no 
spirits for company. 

But, if any one had cared to observe his conduct at home, 
and to draw conclusions from it, they could have noticed that, 
anxious as he was about Ellinor, he rather avoided than 
sought her presence, now that her consciousness and memory 
were restored. Nor did she ask for, or wish for him. The 
presence of each was a burden to the other. Oh, sad and 
woeful night of May — overshadowing the coming summer 
months with gloom and bitter remorse ! 


CHAPTEE VIII 

Still, youth prevailed over all. Ellinor got well, as I have 
said, even when she would fain have died. And the after- 
noon came when she left her room. Miss Monro would 
gladly have made a festival of her recovery, and have had 
her conveyed into the unused drawing-room. But Ellinor 
begged that she might be taken into the library — into the 
school-room — anywhere (thought she) not looking on the 
flower-garden side of the house, which she had felt in all 
her illness as a ghastly pressure l3dng within sight of those 
very windows, through which the morning- sun streamed 
right upon her bed — hke the accusing angel, bringing all 
hidden things to light. 

And when Ellinor was better still, when the bath-chair 
had been sent up for her use, by some kindly old maid, out 
of Hamley, she still petitioned that it might be kept on the 
lawn- or town-side of the house, away from the flower- 
garden. 


479 


A Dark Night’s Work 

One day she almost screamed, when, as she was going to 
the front door, she saw Dixon standing ready to draw her, 
instead of Fletcher, the servant who usually went. But she 
checked all demonstration of feeling ; although it was the 
first time she had seen him since he and she and one more 
had worked their hearts out in hard bodily labour. 

He looked so stern and ill ! Cross, too, which she had 
never seen him before. 

As soon as they were out of immediate sight of the 
windows, she asked him to stop, forcing herself to speak to 
him. 

“ Dixon, you look very poorly,” she said, trembling as she 
spoke. 

“ Ay ! ” said he. “ We didn’t think much of it at the 
time, did we. Miss Nelly ? But it’ll be the death on us, I’m 
thinking. It has aged me above a bit. All my fifty years 
afore were but as a forenoon of child’s play to that night. 
Measter, too — I could a- bear a good deal; but measter cuts 
through the stable yard, and past me, wi’out a word, as if I 
was poison, or a stinking foumart. It’s that as is worst. 
Miss Nelly, it is.” 

And the poor man brushed some tears from his eyes with 
the back of his withered, furrowed hand. Ellinor caught 
the infection, and cried outright, sobbed like a child, even 
while she held out her little white thin hand to his grasp. 
For as soon as he saw her emotion, he was penitent for what 
he had said. 

“ Don’t now — don’t,” was all he could think of to say. 

“ Dixon ! ” said she at length, “ you must not mind it. 
You must try not to mind it. I see he does not like to be 
reminded of that, even by seeing me. He tries never to be 
alone with me. My poor old Dixon, it has spoilt my life for 
me; for I don’t think he loves me any more.” 

She sobbed as if her heart would break ; and now it was 
Dixon’s turn to be comforter. 

“ Ah, dear, my blessing, he loves you above everything. 
It’s only he can’t a-bear the sight of us, as is but natural. 

480 


A Dark Night’s Work 

And, if he doesn’t fancy being alone with you, there’s always 
one as does, and that’s a comfort at the worst of times. And 
don’t ye fret about what I said a minute ago ! I were put 
out, because measter all but pushed me out of his way this 
morning, without never a word. But I were an old fool for 
telling ye. And I’ve really forgotten why I told Fletcher I’d 
drag ye a bit about to-day. Th’ gardener is beginning for to 
wonder as you don’t want to see th’ annuals and bedding-out 
things as you were so particular about in May. And I 
thought I’d just have a word wi’ ye ; and then, if you’d let 
me, we’d go together just once round the flower-garden, 
just to say you’ve been, you know, and to give them chaps 
a bit of praise. You’ll only have to look on the beds, 
my pretty, and it must be done some time. So come 
along ! ” 

He began to pull resolutely in the direction of the flower- 
garden. EUinor bit her lips to keep in the cry of repugnance 
that rose to them. As Dixon stopped to unlock the door, he 
said — 

“It’s not hardness, nothing like it; I’ve waited till I 
heerd you were better ; but it’s in for a penny, in for a pound, 
wi’ us all ; and folk may talk ; and, bless your little brave 
heart, you’ll stand a deal for your father’s sake, and so will 
I ; though I do feel it above a bit, when he puts out his hand 
as if to keep me off, and I only going to speak to him about 
Clipper’s knees; though I’ll own I had wondered many a 
day when I was to have the good-morrow master never 

missed sin’ he were a boy till Well! and now you’ve 

seen the beds, and can say they looked mighty pretty, and 
all is done as you wished; and we’re got out again, and 
breathing fresher air than yon sun-baked hole, with its 
smelling flowers, not half so wholesome to snuff at as good 
stable-dung.” 

So the good man chatted on ; not without the purpose of 
giving Ellinor time to recover herself; and partly also to 
drown his own cares, which lay heavier on his heart than he 
could say. But he thought himself rewarded by EUinor’s 

481 2 I 


A Dark Night’s Work 

thanks and warm pressure of his hard hand, as she got out 
at the front door, and bade him good-bye. 

The break to her days of weary monotony was the letters 
she constantly received from Mr. Corbet. And yet here 
again lurked the sting. He was all astonishment and in- 
dignation at Mr. Dunster’s disappearance, or rather flight, to 
America. And, now that she was growing stronger, he did 
not scruple to express curiosity respecting the details, never 
doubting but that she was perfectly acquainted with much 
that he wanted to know ; although he had too much delicacy 
to question her on the point which was most important of 
all in his eyes, namely, how far it had affected Mr. Wilkins’s 
worldly prospects ; for the report prevalent in Hamley had 
reached London, that Mr. Dunster had made away with, or 
carried off, trust property to a considerable extent, for all 
which Mr. Wilkins would of course be liable. 

It was hard work for Balph Corbet to keep from seeking 
direct information on this head from Mr. Ness, or, indeed, 
from Mr. Wilkins himself. But he restrained himself, know- 
ing that in August he should be able to make all these 
inquiries personally. Before the end of the long vacation 
he had hoped to marry EUinor: that was the time which 
had been planned by them when they had met in the 
early spring, before her illness and all this misfortune 
happened. But now, as he wrote to his father, nothing 
could be definitely arranged until he had paid his visit to 
Hamley, and seen the state of affairs. 

Accordingly, one Saturday in August he came to Ford 
Bank, this time as a visitor to Ellinor’s home, instead of to 
his old quarters at Mr. Ness’s. 

The house was still as if asleep in the full heat of the 
afternoon sun, as Mr. Corbet drove up. The window-blinds 
were down ; the front door wide open, great stands of helio- 
trope and roses and geraniums stood just within the shadow 
of the hall ; but through all the silence his approach seemed 
to excite no commotion. He thought it strange that he had 
not been watched for, that EUinor did not come running out 

482 


A Dark Night’s Work 

to meet him, that she allowed Fletcher to come and attend 
to his luggage, and usher him into the library just hke any 
common visitor, any morning-caller. He stiffened himself 
up into a moment’s indignant coldness of manner. But it 
vanished in an instant when, on the door being opened, he 
saw EUinor standing, holding by the table, looking for his 
appearance with almost panting anxiety. He thought of 
nothing then but her evident weakness, her changed looks, 
for which no account of her illness had prepared him. For 
she was deadly white, lips and all ; and her dark eyes seemed 
unnaturally enlarged, while the caves in which they were 
set were strangely deep and hollow. Her hair, too, had 
been cut off pretty closely ; she did not usually wear a cap, 
but, with some faint idea of making herself look better in his 
eyes, she had put on one this day, and the effect was that 
she seemed to be forty years of age ; but one instant after 
he had come in, her pale face was flooded with crimson, and 
her eyes were full of tears. She had hard work to keep 
herself from going into hysterics ; but she instinctively knew 
how much he would hate a scene, and she checked herself 
in time. 

“ Oh,” she murmured, ” I am so glad to see you ; it is 
such a comfort, such an infinite pleasure.” And so she 
went on, cooing out words over him, and stroking his hair 
with her thin fingers ; while he rather tried to avert his eyes, 
he was so much afraid of betraying how much he thought 
her altered. 

But when she came down, dressed for dinner, this sense 
of her change was diminished to him. Her short brown 
hair had already a little wave, and was ornamented by some 
black lace ; she wore a large black lace shawl — it had been 
her mother’s of old — over some delicate-coloured muslin 
dress ; her face was slightly flushed, and had the tints of a 
wild rose ; her lips kept pale and trembling with involuntary 
motion, it is true ; and, as the lovers stood together, hand in 
hand, by the window, he was aware of a little convulsive 
twitching at every noise, even while she seemed gazing in 

483 


A Dark Night’s Work 

tranquil pleasure on the long smooth slope of the newly- 
mown lawn, stretching down to the little brook that prattled 
merrily over the stones on its merry course to Hamley town. 

He felt a stronger twitch than ever before ; even while 
his ear, less delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar 
sound. About two minutes after Mr. Wilkins entered the 
room. He came up to Mr. Corbet with a warm welcome : 
some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked volubly to 
him, taking little or no notice of Ellinor, who dropped into 
the background, and sat down on the sofa by Miss Monro ; 
for on this day they were all to dine together. Ealph Corbet 
thought that Mr. Wilkins was aged ; but no wonder, after 
all his anxiety of various kinds : Mr. Punster’s flight and 
reported defalcations, and Ellinor’s illness, of the seriousness 
of which her lover was now convinced by her appearance. 

He would fain have spoken more to her during the dinner 
that ensued; but Mr. Wilkins absorbed all his attention, 
talking and questioning on subjects that left the ladies out 
of the conversation almost perpetually. Mr. Corbet recog- 
nised his host’s fine tact, even while his persistence in 
talking annoyed him. He was quite sure that Mr. Wilkins 
was anxious to spare his daughter any exertion beyond that 
— to which, indeed, she seemed scarcely equal — of sitting at 
the head of the table. And the more her father talked — so 
fine an observer was Mr. Corbet — the more silent and 
depressed Elhnor appeared. But, by-and-by, he accounted 
for this inverse ratio of gaiety, as he perceived how quickly 
Mr. Wilkins had his glass replenished. And here, again, 
Mr. Corbet drew his conclusions, from the silent way in 
which, without a word or sign from his master, Fletcher 
gave him more wine continually — wine that was drained off 
at oncp. 

“ Six glasses of sherry before dessert,” thought Mr. 
Corbet to himself. “ Bad habit — no wonder Ellinor looks 
grave.” And, when the gentlemen were left alone, Mr. 
Wilkins helped himself even still more freely ; yet without 
the sUghtest effect on the clearness and brilliancy of his 

484 


A Dark Night’s Work 

conversation. He had always talked well and racily, that 
Balph knew, and in this power he now recognised a tempta- 
tion to which he feared that his future father-in-law had 
succumbed. And yet, while he perceived that this gift led 
into temptation, he coveted it for himself ; for he was per- 
fectly aware that this fluency, this happy choice of epithets, 
was the one thing he should fail in when he began to enter 
into the more active career of his profession. But after 
some time spent in listening and admiring, with this httle 
feeling of envy lurking in the background, Mr. Corbet became 
aware of Mr. Wilkins’s increasing confusion of ideas, and 
rather unnatural merriment ; and, with a sudden revulsion 
from admiration to disgust, he rose up to go into the library, 
where Ellinor and Miss Monro were sitting. Mr. Wilkins 
accompanied him, laughing and talking somewhat loudly. 
Was Ellinor aware of her father’s state? Of that Mr. 
Corbet could not be sure. She looked up with grave sad 
eyes as they came into the room, but with no apparent 
sensation of surprise, annoyance, or shame. When her 
glance met her father’s Mr. Corbet noticed that it seemed 
to sober the latter immediately. He sat down near the open 
window, and did not speak, but sighed heavily from time to 
time. Miss Monro took up a book, in order to leave the 
young people to themselves ; and, after a little low-murmured 
conversation, Ellinor went upstairs to put on her things for 
a stroll through the meadows by the river-side. 

They were some time sauntering along in the lovely 
summer twilight, now resting on some grassy hedgerow 
bank, now standing still, looking at the great barges, with 
their crimson sails, lazily floating down the river, making 
ripples on the glassy opal surface of the water. They did 
not talk very much; Ellinor seemed disinclined for the 
exertion; and her lover was thinking over Mr. Wilkins’s 
behaviour, with some surprise and distaste of the habit so 
evidently growing upon him. 

They came home, looking serious and tired; yet they 
could not account for their fatigue by the length of their 

485 


A Dark Night’s Work 

walk, and Miss Monro, forgetting Autolycus’s song, kept 
fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was she looked 
so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash Meadow. To 
escape from this wonder, Ellinor went early to bed. Mr. 
Wilkins was gone, no one knew where, and Ealph and Miss 
Monro were left to a half-hour’s tete-a-tete. He thought he 
could easily account for Ellinor’s languor, if, indeed, she had 
perceived as much as he had done of her father’s state, when 
they had come into the hbrary after dinner. But there were 
many details which he was anxious to hear from a com- 
paratively indifferent person ; and, as soon as he could, he 
passed on from the conversation about Ellinor’s health, to 
inquiries as to the whole affair of Mr. Dunster’s disappear- 
ance. 

Next to her anxiety about Ellinor, Miss Monro liked to 
dilate on the mystery connected with Mr. Dunster’s flight ; 
for that was the word she employed without hesitation, as 
she gave Ealph the account of the event universally received 
and believed in by the people of Hamley. How Mr. Dunster 
had never been liked by any one ; how everybody remem- 
bered that he could never look them straight in the face ; 
how he always seemed to be hiding something that he did 
not want to have known ; how he had drawn a large sum 
(exact quantity unknown) out of the county-bank only the 
day before he left Hamley, doubtless in preparation for his 
escape ; how some one had told Mr. Wilkins he had seen a 
man just like Dunster lurking about the docks at Liverpool, 
about two days after he had left his lodgings, but that this 
some one, being in a hurry, had not cared to stop and speak 
to the man ; how that the affairs in the office were discovered 
to be in such a sad state that it was no wonder that Mr. 
Dunster had absconded — he that had been so trusted by 
poor dear Mr. Wilkins. Money gone no one knew how or 
where. 

“ But has he no friends who can explain his proceedings, 
and account for the missing money, in some way ? ” asked 
Mr. Corbet. 


486 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ No, none. Mr. Wilkins has written everywhere, right 
and left, I believe. I know he had a letter from Mr. Dunster’s 
nearest relation — a tradesman in the City — a cousin, I think, 
and he could give no information in any way. He knew 
that about ten years ago Mr. Dunster had had a great fancy 
for going to America, and had read a great many travels — 
all just what a man would do before going off to a country.” 

“ Ten years is a long time beforehand,” said Mr. Corbet, 
half-smihng ; “ — shows malice prepense with a vengeance.” 
But then, turning grave, he said, “ Did he leave Hamley 
in debt?” 

“ No ; I never heard of that,” said Miss Monro, rather 
unwillingly; for she considered it as a piece of loyalty to 
the Wilkinses, whom Mr. Dunster had injured (as she 
thought), to blacken his character as much as was consistent 
with any degree of truth. 

“ It is a strange story,” said Mr. Corbet, musing. 

“ Not at all,” she replied quickly ; “I am sure, if you 
had seen the man, with one or two side-locks of hair combed 
over his baldness, as if he were ashamed of it, and his eyes 
that never looked at you, and his way of eating with his 
knife when he thought he was not observed — oh, and 
numbers of things ! — you would not think it strange.” 

Mr. Corbet smiled. 

“ I only meant that he seems to have had no extravagant 
or vicious habits which would account for his embezzlement 
of the money that is missing — but, to be sure, money in itself 
is a temptation — only he, being a partner, was in a fair way 
of making it without risk to himself. Has Mr. Wilkins 
taken any steps to have him arrested in America? He 
might easily do that.” 

“ Oh, my dear Mr. Ealph, you don’t know our good Mr. 
Wilkins ! He would rather bear the loss, I am sure, and all 
this trouble and care which it has brought upon him, than 
be revenged upon Mr. Dunster.” 

“Eevenged! What nonsense! it is simple justice — 
justice to himself and to others — to see that villainy is so 

487 


A Dark Night’s Work 

sufficiently punished as to deter others from entering upon 
such courses. But I have little doubt Mr. Wilkins has 
taken the right steps ; he is not the man to sit down quietly 
under such a loss.” 

“No, indeed ! He had him advertised in the Times and 
in the county papers, and offered a reward of twenty pounds 
for information concerning him.” 

“ Twenty pounds was too little.” 

“ So I said. I told Ellinor that I would give twenty 
pounds myself to have him apprehended, and she, poor 
darling ! fell a-trembling, and said, ‘ I would give all I have 
— I would give my life.’ And then she was in such distress, 
and sobbed so, I promised her I would never name it to her 
again.” 

“Poor child — poor child! she wants change of scene. 
Her nerves have been sadly shaken by her illness.” 

The next day was Sunday ; Ellinor was to go to church 
for the first time since her illness. Her father had decided 
it for her, or else she would fain have stayed away — she 
would hardly acknowledge why, even to herself; but it 
seemed to her as if the very words and presence of God 
must there search her and find her out. 

She went early, leaning on the arm of her lover, and 
trying to forget the past in the present. They walked 
slowly along between the rows of waving golden corn ripe 
for the harvest. Mr. Corbet gathered blue and scarlet 
flowers, and made up a little rustic nosegay for her. She 
took and stuck it in her girdle, smiling faintly as she did so. 

Hamley Church had, in former days, been collegiate, 
and was, in consequence, much larger and grander than 
the majority of country- town churches. The Ford Bank 
pew was a square one, downstairs ; the Ford Bank servants 
sat in a front pew in the gallery, right before their master. 
Ellinor was “ hardening her heart ” not to listen, not to 
hearken to what might disturb the wound which was just 
being skinned over, when she caught Dixon’s face up above. 
He looked worn, sad, soured, and anxious to a miserable 

488 


A Dark Night’s Work 

degree ; but he was straining eyes and ears, heart and soul, 
to hear the solemn words read from the pulpit, as if in them 
alone he could find help in his strait. Ellinor felt rebuked 
and humbled. 

She was in a tumultuous state of mind when they left 
church ; she wished to do her duty, yet could not ascertain 
what it was. Who was to help her with wisdom and advice ? 
Assuredly he to whom her future life was to be trusted! 
But the case must be stated in an impersonal form. No 
one, not even her husband, must ever know anything against 
her father from her. Ellinor was so artless herself, that she 
had little idea how quickly and easily some people can pene- 
trate motives, and combine disjointed sentences. She began 
to speak to Ealph on their slow, sauntering walk homewards 
through the quiet meadows. 

Suppose, Ealph, that a girl was engaged to be 
married " 

“ I can very easily suppose that, with you by me,” said 
he, filling up her pause. 

“Oh! but I don’t mean myself at all,” replied she, 
reddening. “ I am only thinking of what might happen ; 
and suppose that this girl knew of some one belonging to 
her — we will call it a brother — who had done something 
wrong, that would bring disgrace upon the whole family if 
it was known — though, indeed, it might not have been so 
very wrong as it seemed, and as it would look to the world 
— ought she to break off her engagement for fear of involving 
her lover in the disgrace ? ” 

“ Certainly not, without telling him her reason for 
doing so.” 

“ Ah ! but suppose she could not. She might not be at 
liberty to do so.” 

“ I can’t answer supposititious cases. I must have the 
facts — if facts there are — more plainly before me, if I am 
to give an opinion. Whom are you thinking of, Elhnor ? ” 
asked he rather abruptly. 

“ Oh, of no one,” she answered in affright. “ Why should 
489 


A Dark Night’s Work 

I be thinking of any one ? I often try to plan out what I 
should do, or what I ought to do, if such and such a thing 
happened, just as you recollect I used to wonder if I should 
have presence of mind in case of fire.” 

“ Then, after all, you yourself are the girl who is engaged, 
and who has the imaginary brother who gets into disgrace?” 

“ Yes, I suppose so,” said she, a little annoyed at having 
betrayed any personal interest in the affair. 

He was silent, meditating. 

“There is nothing wrong in it,” said she timidly, “is 
there?” 

“ I think you had better tell me fully out what is in your 
mind,” he replied kindly. “ Something has happened which 
has suggested these questions. Are you putting yourself in 
the place of any one about whom you have been hearing 
lately ? I know you used to do so formerly, when you were 
a little girl.” 

“ No ; it was a very foolish question of mine, and I ought 
not to have said anything about it. See ! here is Mr. Ness 
overtaking us.” 

The clergyman joined them on the broad walk that ran 
by the river-side, and the talk became general. It was a 
relief to Ellinor, who had not attained her end, but who had 
gone far towards betraying something of her own individual 
interest in the question she had asked. Ealph had been 
more struck even by her manner than her words. He was 
sure that something lurked behind, and had an idea of his 
own that it was connected with Dunster’s disappearance. 
But he was glad that Mr. Ness’s joining them gave him 
leisure to consider a little. 

The end of his reflections was, that the next day, Monday, 
he went into the town, and artfully learnt all he could hear 
about Mr. Dunster’s character and mode of going on ; and 
with still more skill he extracted the popular opinion as to 
the embarrassed nature of Mr. Wilkins’s affairs — embarrass- 
ment which was generally attributed to Dunster’s dis- 
appearance with a good large sum belonging to the firm 

490 


A Dark Night’s Work 

in his possession. But Mr. Corbet thought otherwise ; he 
had accustomed himself to seek out the baser motives for 
men’s conduct, and to call the result of these researches 
wisdom. He imagined that Dunster had been well paid by 
Mr. Wilkins for his disappearance, which was an easy way 
of accounting for the derangement of accounts and loss of 
money that arose, in fact, from Mr. Wilkins’s extravagance 
of habits and growing intemperance. 

On the Monday afternoon he said to Ellinor, “ Mr. Ness 
interrupted us yesterday in a very interesting conversation. 
Do you remember, love ? ” 

Elhnor reddened, and kept her head still more intently 
bent over a sketch she was making. 

** Yes ; I recollect.” 

“ I have been thinking about it. I still think she ought 
to tell her lover that such disgrace hung over him — I mean, 
over the family with whom he was going to connect himself. 
Of course, the only effect would be to make him stand by 
her still more for her frankness.” 

“ Oh I but, Ealph, it might perhaps be something she 
ought not to tell, whatever came of her silence.” 

“ Of course there might be all sorts of cases. Unless I 
knew more, I could not pretend to judge.” 

This was said rather more coolly. It had the desired 
effect. Ellinor laid down her brush, and covered her face 
with her hand. After a pause, she turned towards him and 
said — 

I will tell you this ; and more you must not ask me. 
I know you are as safe as can be. I am the girl, you are 
the lover, and possible shame hangs over my father, if some- 
thing — oh, so dreadful ” (here she blanched), “ but not so 
very much his fault, is ever found out.” 

Though this was nothing more than he expected, though 
Ealph thought that he was aware what the dreadful some- 
thing might be, yet, when it was acknowledged in words, his 
heart contracted, and for a moment he forgot the intent, 
wistful, beautiful face, creeping close to his, to read his 

491 


A Dark Night’s Work 

expression aright. But after that his presence of mind 
came in aid. He took her in his arms and kissed her; 
murmuring fond words of sympathy, and promises of ’ faith, 
nay, even of greater love than before, since greater need she 
might have of that love. But somehow he was glad when 
the dressing-bell rang, and in the solitude of his own room 
he could reflect on what he had heard ; for the intelligence 
had been a great shock to him, although he had fancied that 
his morning’s inquiries had prepared him for it. 


CHAPTEE IX 

Balph Corbet found it a very difficult thing to keep down 
his curiosity during the next few days. It was a miserable 
thing to have Ellinor’s unspoken secret severing them like a 
phantom. But he had given her his word that he would 
make no further inquiries from her. Indeed, he thought he 
could well enough make out the outline of past events ; still, 
there was too much left to conjecture for his mind not to be 
always busy on the subject. He felt inclined to probe Mr. 
Wilkins in their after-dinner conversation, in which his host 
was frank and lax enough on many subjects. But once 
touch on the name of Dunster and Mr. Wilkins sank into 
a kind of suspicious depression of spirits ; talking little, and 
with evident caution ; and from time to time shooting furtive 
glances at his interlocutor’s face. Ellinor was resolutely 
impervious to any attempts of his to bring his conversation 
with her back to the subject which more and more engrossed 
Ealph Corbet’s mind. She had done her duty, as she under- 
stood it, and had received assurances which she was only 
too glad to believe fondly with all the tender faith of her heart. 
Whatever came to pass, Ealph’s love would still be hers; 
nor was he unwarned of what might come to pass in some 
dread future day. So she shut her eyes to what might be in 

492 


A Dark Night’s Work 

store for her (and, after all, the chances were immeasurably 
in her favour) ; and she bent herself with her whole strength 
into enjoying the present. Day by day Mr. Corbet’s spirits 
flagged. He was, however, so generally uniform in the tenor 
of his talk — never very merry, and always avoiding any 
subject that might call out deep feeling either on his own or 
any one else’s part — that few people were aware of his 
changes of mood. Ellinor felt them, though she would not 
acknowledge them : it was bringing her too much face to face 
with the great terror of her life. 

One morning he announced the fact of his brother’s 
approaching marriage ; the wedding was hastened on account 
of some impending event in the duke’s family ; and the home 
letter he had received that day was to bid his presence at 
Stokely Castle, and also to desire him to be at home by a 
certain time not very distant, in order to look over the 
requisite legal papers, and to give his assent to some of them. 
He gave many reasons why this unlooked-for departure of 
his was absolutely necessary; but no one doubted it. He 
need not have alleged such reiterated excuses. The truth 
was, he felt restrained and uncomfortable at Ford Bank ever 
since Ellinor’s confidence. He could not rightly calculate on 
the most desirable course for his own interests, while his love 
for her was constantly being renewed by her sweet presence. 
Away from her, he could judge more wisely. Nor did he 
allege any false reasons for his departure ; but the sense of 
relief to himself was so great at his recall home, that he was 
afraid of its being perceived by others ; and so took the 
very way which, if others had been as penetrating as 
himself, would have betrayed him. 

Mr. Wilkins, too, had begun to feel the restraint of 
Ealph’s grave watchful presence. Ellinor was not strong 
enough to be married ; nor was the promised money forth- 
coming if she had been. And to have a fellow dawdling 
about the house all day, sauntering into the flower-garden, 
peering about everywhere, and having a kind of right to 
put all manner of unexpected questions, was anything but 

493 


A Dark Night’s Work 

agreeable. It was only Ellinor that clung to his presence — 
clung as though some shadow of what might happen before 
they met again had fallen on her spirit. As soon as he had left 
the house, she flew up to a spare-bedroom window, to watch 
for the last glimpse of the fly which was taking him into the 
town. And then she kissed the part of the pane on which 
his figure, waving an arm out of the carriage window, had 
last appeared ; and went down slowly to gather together all the 
things he had last touched — the pen he had mended, the flower 
he had played with, and to lock them up in the little quaint 
cabinet that had held her treasures since she was a tiny child. 

Miss Monro was, perhaps, very wise in proposing the 
translation of a difficult part of Dante for a distraction to 
Elhnor. The girl went meekly, if reluctantly, to the task set 
her by her good governess, and by-and-by her mind became 
braced by the exertion. 

Ealph’s people were not very slow in discovering that 
something had not gone on quite smoothly with him at Ford 
Bank. They knew his ways and looks with family intuition, 
and could easily be certain thus far. But not even his 
mother’s skilfulest wiles, nor his favourite sister’s coaxing, 
could obtain a word or a hint; and, when his father, the 
squire, who had heard the opinions of the female part of 
the family on this head, began, in his honest, blustering 
way, in their tke-a-tetes after dinner, to hope that Ealph was 
thinking better than to run his head into that confounded 
Hamley attorney’s noose, Ealph gravely required Mr. Corbet 
to explain his meaning, which he professed not to under- 
stand so worded. And when the squire had, with much 
perplexity, put it into the plain terms of hoping that his 
son was thinking of breaking off his engagement with Miss 
Wilkins, Ealph coolly asked him if he was aware that, in 
that case, he should lose all title to being a man of honour, 
and might have an action brought against him for breach of 
promise ? 

Yet not the less for all this was the idea in his mind as 
a future possibility. 


494 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Before very long the Corbet family moved en masse to 
Stokely Castle for the wedding. Of course, Ealph associated 
on equal terms with the magnates of the county, who were 
the employers of Ellinor’s father, and spoke of him always 
as “ Wilkins,” just as they spoke of the butler as “ Simmons.” 
Here, too, among a class of men high above local gossip, 
and thus unaware of his engagement, he learnt the popular 
opinion respecting his future father-in-law ; an opinion not 
entirely respectful, though intermingled with a good deal of 
personal liking. “ Poor Wilkins,” as they called him, “ was 
sadly extravagant for a man in his position ; had no right 
to spend money and act as if he were a man of independent 
fortune.” His habits of life were criticised; and pity, not 
free from blame, was bestowed upon him for the losses he 
had sustained from his late clerk’s disappearance and defalca- 
tion. But what could be expected if a man did not choose 
to attend to his own business ? 

The wedding went by, as grand weddings do, without let 
or hindrance, according to the approved pattern. A Cabinet 
minister honoured it with his presence, and, being a distant 
relation to the Brabants, remained for a few days after the 
grand occasion. During this time he became rather intimate 
with Ealph Corbet ; many of their tastes were in common. 
Ealph took a great interest in the manner of working out 
political questions ; in the balance and state of parties ; and 
had the right appreciation of the exact quahties on which 
the minister piqued himself. In return, the latter was 
always on the look-out for promising young men, who, by 
their capability either of speech-making or of article-writing, 
might advance the views of his party. Eecognising the 
powers he most valued in Ealph, he spared no pains to 
attach him to his own political set. When they separated, 
it was with the full understanding that they were to see a 
good deal of each other in London. 

The holiday Ealph allowed himself was passing rapidly 
away ; but, before he returned to his chambers and his hard 
work, he had promised to spend a few more days with 

495 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Ellinor; and it suited him to go straight from the duke’s 
to Ford Bank. He left the Castle soon after breakfast — the 
luxurious, elegant breakfast, served by domestics who per- 
formed their work with the accuracy and perfection of 
machines. He arrived at Ford Bank, before the man-servant 
had quite finished the dirtier part of his morning’s work, and 
he came to the glass-door in his striped cotton jacket, a little 
soiled, and rolling up his working apron. Ellinor was not 
yet strong enough to get up early, to go out and gather flowers 
for the rooms, so those left from yesterday were rather faded ; 
in short, the contrast from entire completeness and exquisite 
freshness of arrangement struck forcibly upon Ealph’s per- 
ceptions, which were critical rather than appreciative ; and, 
as his affections were always subdued to his intellect, Ellinor’s 
lovely face and graceful figure, flying to meet him, did not 
gain his full approval ; because her hair was dressed in an 
old-fashioned way, her waist was either too long or too 
short, her sleeves too full or too tight for the standard of 
fashion to which his eye had been accustomed, while scan- 
ning the bridesmaids and various highborn ladies at Stokely 
Castle. 

But, as he had always piqued himself upon being able 
to put on one side all superficial worldliness in his chase 
after power, it did not do for him to shrink from seeing and 
facing the incompleteness of moderate means. Only, marriage 
upon moderate means was gradually becoming more dis- 
tasteful to him. 

Nor did his subsequent intercourse with Lord Bolton, 
the Cabinet minister before mentioned, tend to reconcile 
him to early matrimony. At Lord Bolton’s house he met 
polished and intellectual society, and all that smoothness 
in ministering to the lower wants in eating and drinking 
which seems to provide that the right thing shall always 
be at the right place at the right time, so that the want of 
it shall never impede for an instant the feast of wit or 
reason ; while, if he went to the houses of his friends, men 
of the same college and standing as himself, who had been 

496 


A Dark Night’s Work 

seduced into early marriages, he was uncomfortably aware 
of numerous inconsistencies and hitches in their inenages. 
Besides, the idea of the possible disgrace that might befall 
the family with which he thought of allying himself haunted 
him with the tenacity and also with the exaggeration of a 
nightmare, whenever he had overworked himself in his 
search after available and profitable knowledge, or had a 
fit of indigestion after the exquisite dinners he was learning 
so well to appreciate. 

Christmas was, of course, to be devoted to his own 
family ; it was an unavoidable necessity, as he told Ellinor ; 
while, in reality, he was beginning to find absence from his 
betrothed something of a relief. Yet the wranglings and 
folly of his home, even blessed by the presence of a Lady 
Maria, made him look forward to Easter at Ford Bank with 
something of the old pleasure. 

Ellinor, with the fine tact which love gives, had dis- 
covered his annoyance at various httle incongruities in the 
household at the time of his second visit in the previous 
autumn, and had laboured to make all as perfect as she 
could before his return. But she had much to struggle 
against. For the first time in her life there was a great 
want of ready money ; she could scarcely obtain the servants’ 
wages ; and the bill for the spring seeds was a heavy weight 
on her conscience. For Miss Monro’s methodical habits had 
taught her pupil great exactitude as to all money-matters. 

Then her father’s temper had become very uncertain. 
He avoided being alone with her whenever he possibly 
could; and the consciousness of this, and of the terrible 
mutual secret which was the c^iuse of this estrangement, 
were the reasons why Ellinor never recovered her pretty 
youthful bloom after her illness. Of course it was to this 
that the outside world attributed her changed appearance. 
They would shake their heads and say, “ Ah, poor Miss 
Wilkins ! What a lovely creature she was before that 
fever ! ” 

But youth is youth, and will assert itself in a certain 
497 2 K 


A Dark Night’s Work 

elasticity of body and spirits; and at times Ellinor forgot 
that fearful night, for several hours together. Even when 
her father’s averted eye brought it all once more before her, 
she had learnt to form excuses and palliations, and to regard 
Mr. Dunster’s death as only the consequence of an unfor- 
tunate accident. But she tried to put the miserable remem- 
brance entirely out of her mind ; to go on from day to day 
thinking only of each day, and how to arrange it so as to 
cause the least irritation to her father. She would so gladly 
have spoken to him on the one subject which overshadowed 
all their intercourse ; she fancied that by speaking she 
might have been able to banish the phantom, or reduce its 
terror to what she believed to be the due proportion. But 
her father was evidently determined to show that he was 
never more to be spoken to on that subject; and all she 
could do was to follow his lead on the rare occasions when 
they fell into something like the old confidential intercourse. 
As yet, to her, he had never given way to anger ; but before 
her he had often spoken in a manner which both pained and 
terrified her. Sometimes his eye, in the midst of his passion, 
caught on her face of affright and dismay; and then he 
would stop, and make such an effort to control himself as 
sometimes ended in tears. Ellinor did not understand that 
both these phases were owing to his increasing habit of 
drinking more than he ought to have done. She set them 
down as the direct effects of a sorely-burdened conscience; 
and strove more and more to plan for his daily life at home — 
how it should go on with oiled wheels, with neither a jerk 
nor a jar. It was no wonder she looked wistful, and care- 
worn, and old. Miss Monro.was her great comfort ; the total 
unconsciousness on that lady’s part of anything below the 
surface, and yet her full and delicate recognition of all the 
Little daily cares and trials, made her sympathy most valuable 
to Ellinor ; while there was no need to fear that it would ever 
give Miss Monro that power of seeing into the heart of 
things which it frequently confers upon imaginative people, 
who are deeply attached to some one in sorrow. 

498 


A Dark Night’s Work 

There was a strong bond between EUinor and Dixon, 
although they scarcely ever exchanged a word save on the 
most commonplace subjects ; but their silence was based on 
different feelings from that which separated Ellinor from 
her father. Ellinor and Dixon could not speak freely, 
because their hearts were full of pity for the faulty man 
whom they both loved so well, and tried so hard to respect. 

This was the state of the household to which Ealph 
Corbet came down at Easter. He might have been known 
in London as a brilliant diner-out by this time ; but he 
could not afford to throw his life away in fireworks ; he cal- 
culated his forces, and condensed their power as much as 
might be, only visiting where he was likely to meet men 
who could help in his future career. He had been invited 
to spend the Easter vacation at a certain country-house 
which would be full of such human stepping-stones ; and he 
declined, in order to keep his word to Ellinor and go to Ford 
Bank. But he could not help looking upon himself a little 
in the light of a martyr to duty ; and perhaps this view of 
his own merits made him chafe under his future father-in- 
law’s irritability of manner, which now showed itself even to 
him. He found himself distinctly regretting that he had 
suffered himself to be engaged so early in life ; and, having 
become conscious of the temptation and not having repelled 
it at once, of course it returned and returned, and gradually 
obtained the mastery over him. What wus to be gained by 
keeping to his engagement with Ellinor ? He should have a 
delicate wife to look after, and even more than the common 
additional expenses of married life. He should have a 
father-in-law whose character at best had had only a local 
and provincial respectability, which it was now daily losing 
by habits which were both sensual and vulgarising ; a man, 
too, who was strangely changing from joyous geniality into 
moody surliness. Besides, he doubted if, in the evident 
change in the prosperity of the family, the fortune to be paid 
down on the occasion of his marriage to Ellinor could be 
forthcoming. And above all, and around all, there hovered 

499 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the shadow of some unrevealed disgrace, which might come 
to light at any time and involve him in it. He thought he 
had pretty well ascertained the nature of this possible shame, 
and had little doubt it would turn out to be that Dunster’s 
disappearance, to America or elsewhere, had been an arranged 
plan with Mr. Wilkins. Although Mr. Kalph Corbet was 
capable of suspecting him of this mean crime (so far removed 
from the impulsive commission of the past sin which was 
dragging him daily lower and lower down), it was of a kind 
that was peculiarly distasteful to the acute lawyer, who fore- 
saw how such base conduct would taint all whose names 
were ever mentioned, even by chance, in connection with it. 
He used to lie miserably tossing on his sleepless bed, turning 
over these things in the night season. He was tormented 
by all these thoughts; he would bitterly regret the past 
events that connected him with Ellinor, from the day when 
he first came to read with Mr. Ness up to the present time. 
But, when he came down in the morning, and saw the faded 
Ellinor flash into momentary beauty at his entrance into the 
dining-room, and when she blushingly drew near with the 
one single flower freshly gathered, which it had been her 
custom to place in his button-hole when he came down to 
breakfast, he felt as if his better self was stronger than 
temptation, and as if he must be an honest man and honour- 
able lover, even against his wish. 

As the day wore on, the temptation gathered strength. 
Mr. Wilkins came down ; and, while he was on the scene, 
Ellinor seemed always engrossed by her father, who appa- 
rently cared little enough for all her attentions. Then there 
was a complaining of the food, which did not suit the sickly 
palate of a man who had drunk hard the night before ; and 
possibly these complaints were extended to the servants, and 
their incompleteness or incapacity was thus brought promi- 
nently before the eyes of Ealph, who would have preferred 
to eat a diy crust in silence or to have gone without break- 
fast altogether, if he could have had intellectual conversation 
of some high order, to having the greatest dainties with the 

500, 


A Dark Night’s Work 

knowledge of the care required in their preparation thus 
coarsely discussed before him. By the time such breakfasts 
were finished, Ellinor looked thirty, and her spirits were 
gone for the day. It had become difficult for Ealph to 
contract his mind to her small domestic interests, and she 
had little else to talk to him about, now that he responded 
but curtly to all her questions about himself, and was weary 
of professing a love which he was ceasing to feel, in all the 
passionate nothings which usually make up so much of 
lovers’ talk. The books she had been reading were old 
classics whose place in literature no longer admitted of keen 
discussion ; the poor whom she cared for were all very well 
in their way; and, if they could have been brought in to 
illustrate a theory, hearing about them might have been of 
some use ; but, as it was, it was simply tiresome to hear day 
after day of Betty Palmer’s rheumatism and Mrs. Kay’s 
baby’s fits. There was no talking politics with her, because 
she was so ignorant that she always agreed with everything 
he said. 

He even grew to find luncheon and Miss Monro not un- 
pleasant varieties to his monotonous tete-a4Hes. Then came 
the walk, generally to the town to fetch Mr. Wilkins from 
his office ; and, once or twice, it was pretty evident how he 
had been employing his hours. One day in particular, his 
walk was so unsteady and his speech so thick, that Ealph 
could only wonder how it was that Ellinor did not perceive 
the cause ; but she was too openly anxious about the head- 
ache of which her father complained, to have been at all 
aware of the previous self-indulgence which must have 
brought it on. This very afternoon, as ill-luck would have 
it, the Duke of Hinton and a gentleman whom Ealph had 
met in town at Lord Bolton’s rode by, and recognised him ; 
saw Ealph supporting a tipsy man with such quiet friendly 
interest as must show all passers-by that they were previous 
friends. Mr. Corbet chafed and fumed inwardly all the 
way home after this unfortunate occurrence; he was in a 
thoroughly evil temper before they reached Ford Bank ; but 

501 


A Dark Night’s Work 

lie had too much self-command to let this be very apparent. 
He turned into the shrubbery paths, leaving Ellinor to take 
her father into the quietness of his own room, there to lie 
down and shake off his headache. 

Ealph walked along, ruminating in gloomy mood as to 
what was to be done ; how he could best extricate himself 
from the miserable relation in which he had placed himself 
by giving way to impulse. Almost before he was aware, a 
little hand stole within his folded arms, and Ellinor’s sweet 
sad eyes looked into his. 

“ I have put papa down for an hour’s rest before dinner,” 
said she. “ His head seems to ache terribly.” 

Ealph was silent and unsympathising, trying to nerve 
himself up to be disagreeable, but finding it difficult in the 
face of such sweet trust. 

“ Do you remember our conversation last autumn, 
Ellinor ? ” he began at length. 

Her head sank. They were near a garden-seat, and she 
quietly sat down, without speaking. 

“ About some disgrace which you then fancied hung over 
you ? ” No answer. “ Does it still hang over you ? ” 

“ Yes ! ” she whispered, with a heavy sigh. 

“ And your father knows this, of course ? ” 

“ Yes ! ” again in the same tone ; and then silence. 

“ I think it is doing him harm,” at length Ealph went 
on decidedly. 

“ I am afraid it is,” she said, in a low tone. 

“ I wish you would tell me what it is,” he said, a little 
impatiently. “ I might be able to help you about it.” 

“ No ! you could not,” replied Ellinor. “ I was sorry to 
my very heart to tell you what I did ; I did not want help ; 
all that is past. But I wanted to know if you thought that 
a person situated as I was, was justified in marrying any 
one ignorant of what might happen, what I do hope and 
trust never will.” 

“ But if I don’t know what you are alluding to in this 
mysterious way, you must see — don’t you see, love ? — I am 

502 


A Dark Night’s Work 

in the position of the ignorant man whom I think you said 
you could not feel it right to marry. Why don’t you tell 
me straight out what it is? ” He could not help his irrita- 
tion betraying itself in his tones and manner of speaking. 
She bent a little forward, and looked full into his face, as 
though to pierce to the very heart’s truth of him. Then 
she said, as quietly as she had ever spoken in her life — 

“ You wish to break off our engagement ? ” 

He reddened and grew indignant in a moment. “ What 
nonsense! Just because I ask a question and make a 
remark ! I think your illness must have made you fanciful, 
Ellinor. Surely nothing I said deserves such an interpreta- 
tion. On the contrary, have I not shown the sincerity and 
depth of my affection to you by clinging to you through — 
— through everything ? ” 

He was going to say “ through the wearying opposition 
of my family ” ; but he stopped short, for he knew that the 
very fact of his mother’s opposition had only made him the 
more determined to have his own way in the first instance ; 
and even now he did not intend to let out, what he had 
concealed up to this time, that his friends all regretted his 
imprudent engagement. 

Ellinor sat silently gazing out upon the meadows, but 
seeing nothing. Then she put her hand into his. “ I quite 
trust you, Ealph. I was wrong to doubt. I am afraid I 
have grown fanciful and silly.” 

He was rather put to it for the right words, for she had 
precisely divined the dim thought that had overshadowed 
his mind, when she had looked so intently at him. But he 
caressed her, and reassured her with fond words, as inco- 
herent as lovers’ words generally are. 

By-and-by, they sauntered homewards. When they 
reached the house, Ellinor left him, and flew up to see how 
her father was. When Ealph went into his own room, he 
was vexed with himself, both for what he had said and 
for what he had not said. His mental look-out was not 
satisfactory. 


503 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Neither he nor Mr. Wilkins was in good humour with 
the world in general at dinner-time, and it needs little in 
such cases to condense and turn the lowering tempers into 
one particular direction. As long as EUinor and Miss Monro 
stayed in the dining-room, a sort of moody peace had been 
kept up, the ladies talking incessantly to each other about 
the trivial nothings of their daily life, with an instinctive 
consciousness that, if they did not chatter on, something 
would be said by one of the gentlemen which would be 
distasteful to the other. 

As soon as Ealph had shut the door behind them, Mr. 
Wilkins went to the sideboard, and took out a bottle which 
had not previously made its appearance. 

“ Have a little cognac ? ” he asked, with an assumption 
of carelessness, as he poured out a wine-glassful. “ It’s a 
capital thing for the headache; and this nasty lowering 
weather has given me a racking headache all day.” 

“ I am sorry for it,” said Ealph ; “ for I wanted particu- 
larly to speak to you about business — about my marriage, 
in fact.” 

“ Well, speak away ! I’m as clear-headed as any man, 
if that’s what you mean.” 

Ealph bowed, a little contemptuously. 

“ What I wanted to say was, that I am anxious to have 
all things arranged for my marriage in August. Ellinor is 
so much better now ; in fact, so strong, that I think we may 
reckon upon her standing the change to a London life pretty 
well.” 

Mr. Wilkins stared at him rather blankly, but did not 
immediately speak. 

“ Of course I may have the deeds drawn up in which, as 
by previous arrangement, you advance a certain portion of 
Ellinor’s fortune for the purposes therein to be assigned ; as 
we settled last year when I hoped to have been married in 
August ? ” 

A thought flitted through Mr. Wilkins’s confused brain 
that he should And it impossible to produce the thousands 

504 


A Dark Night’s Work 

required without having recourse to the money-lenders, who 
were already making difficulties, and charging him usurious 
interest for the advances they had lately made; and he 
unwisely tried to obtain a diminution in the sum he had 
originally proposed to give Ellinor. “ Unwisely,” because 
he might have read Ealph’s character better than to suppose 
he would easily consent to any diminution, without good and 
sufficient reason being given ; or without some promise of 
advantages compensating in the future for the present 
sacrifice asked from him. But perhaps Mr. Wilkins, dulled 
as he was by wine, thought he could allege a good and 
sufficient reason, for he said — 

“ You must not be hard upon me, Ealph. That promise 
was made before — before I exactly knew the state of my 
affairs ! ” 

“ Before Dunster’s disappearance, in fact,” said Mr. 
Corbet, fixing his steady, penetrating eyes on Mr. Wilkins’s 
countenance. 

“ Yes — exactly — before Dunster’s ” mumbled out Mr. 

Wilkins, red and confused, and not finishing his sentence. 

“ By the way,” said Ealph (for, with careful carelessness 
of manner, he thought he could extract something of the real 
nature of the impending disgrace from his companion, in the 
state in which he then was ; and, if he only knew more 
about this danger, he could guard against it ; guard others ; 
perhaps himself) — “ By the way, have you ever heard 
anything of Dunster since he went off to — America, isn’t it 
thought ? ” 

He was startled beyond his power of self-control by the 
instantaneous change in Mr. Wilkins which his question 
produced. Both started up; Mr. Wilkins white, shaking, 
and trying to say something, but unable to form a sensible 
sentence. 

“ Good God I sir, what is the matter ? ” said Ealph, 
alarmed at these signs of physical suffering. 

Mr. Wilkins sat down, and repelled his nearer approach 
without speaking. 


505 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ It is nothing — only this headache which shoots through 
me at times. Don’t look at me, sir, in that way ! It is very 
unpleasant to find another man’s eyes perpetually fixed upon 
you.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Ealph coldly ; his short-lived 
sympathy, thus repulsed, giving way to his curiosity. But 
he waited for a minute or two without daring to renew the 
conversation at the point where they had stopped : whether 
interrupted by bodily or mental discomfort on the part of his 
companion he was not quite sure. While he hesitated how 
to begin again on the subject, Mr. Wilkins pulled the bottle 
of brandy to himself and filled his glass again, tossing off 
the spirit as if it had been water. Then he tried to look Mr. 
Corbet full in the face, with a stare as pertinacious as he 
could make it, but very different from the keen, observant 
gaze which was trying to read him through. 

“ What were we talking about ? ” said Ealph at length, 
with the most natural air in the world, just as if he had 
really been forgetful of some half -discussed subject of interest. 

“ Of what you’d a d d deal better hold your tongue 

about,” growled out Mr. Wilkins, in a surly, thick voice. 

“ Sir ! ” said Ealph, starting to his feet with real passion 
at being so addressed by “ Wilkins the attorney.” 

“ Yes,” continued the latter ; “ I’ll manage my own 
affairs, and allow of no meddling and no questioning. I 
said so once before, and I was not minded, and bad came 
of it ; and now I say it again. And if you’re to come here 
and put impertinent questions, and stare at me as you’ve 
been doing this half-hour past, why, the sooner you leave 
this house the better ! ” 

Ealph half turned to take him at his word, and go at 
once ; but then he “ gave Ellinor another chance,” as he 
worded it in his thoughts ; but it was in no spirit of con- 
ciliation that he said — 

“You’ve taken too much of that stuff, sir. You don’t 
know what you’re saying. If you did, I should leave your 
house at once, never to return.” 

506 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ You think so, do you ? ” said Mr. Wilkins, trying to 
stand up, and look dignified and sober. “ I say, sir, that 
if you ever venture again to talk and look as you have done 
to-night, why, sir, I will ring the bell and have you shown 
the door by my servants ! So now you’re warned, my fine 
fellow ! ” He sat down, laughing a foolish tipsy laugh of 
triumph. In another minute his arm was held firmly but 
gently by Ealph. 

“ Listen, Mr. Wilkins,” he said, in a low hoarse voice. 
“ You shall never have to say to me twice what you have 
said to-night. Henceforward we are as strangers to each 
other. As to Ellinor”— his tones softened a httle, and he 
sighed in spite of himself — “ I do not think we should have 
been happy. I believe our engagement was formed when 
we were too young to know our own minds, but I would 
have done my duty and kept to my word; but you, sir, 
have yourself severed the connection between us by your 
insolence to-night. I, to be turned out of your house by 
your servants ! — I, a Corbet of Westley, who would not 
submit to such threats from a peer of the realm, let him be 
ever so drunk ! ” He was out of the room, almost out of 
the house, before he had spoken the last words. 

Mr. Wilkins sat still, first fiercely angry, then astonished, 
and lastly dismayed into sobriety. “ Corbet, Corbet I Ealph ! ” 
he called in vain; then he got up and went to the door, 
opened it, looked into the fully-lighted hall ; all was so quiet 
there that he could hear the quiet voices of the women in 
the drawing-room talking together. He thought for a 
moment, went to the hat-stand, and missed Ealph’s low- 
crowned straw hat. 

Then he sat down once more in the dining-room, and 
endeavoured to make out exactly what had passed ; but he 
could not believe that Mr. Corbet had come to any enduring 
or final resolution to break off his engagement ; and he had 
almost reasoned himself back into his former state of indig- 
nation at impertinence and injury, when Ellinor came in, 
pale, hurried, and anxious. 


507 


A Dark Night’s Work 

** Papa ! what does this mean ? ” said she, putting an 
open note into his hand. He took up his glasses, but his 
hand shook so that he could hardly read. The note was 
from the Parsonage, to Ellinor; only three lines sent by 
Mr. Ness’s servant, who had come to fetch Mr. Corbet’s 
things. He had written three lines, with some consideration 
for Ellinor, even when he was in his first flush of anger 
against her father, and it must be confessed of relief at his 
own freedom, thus brought about by the act of another, and 
not of his own working-out ; which partly saved his conscience. 
The note ran thus : 

“Dear Ellinor, — Words have passed between your 
father and me which have obliged me to leave his house — I 
fear, never to return to it. I will write more fully to-morrow. 
But do not grieve too much ; for I am not, and never have 
been, good enough for you. God bless you, my dearest 
Nelly, though I call you so for the last time. — E. C.” 

“ Papa, what is it ? ” Ellinor cried, clasping her hands 
together, as her father sat silent, vacantly gazing into the 
fire, after finishing the note. 

“ I don’t know ! ” said he, looking up at her piteously ; 
“it’s the world, I think. Everything goes wrong with me 
and mine ; it went wrong before that night — so it can’t be 
that, can it, Ellinor ? ” 

“ Oh, papa ! ” said she, kneeling down by him, her face 
hidden on his breast. 

He put one arm languidly round her. “I used to read 
of Orestes and the Furies at Eton when I was a boy, and I 
thought it was all a heathen fiction. Poor little motherless 
girl ! ” said he, laying his other hand on her head, with the 
caressing gesture he had been accustomed to use when she 
had been a little child. “ Did you love him so very dearly, 
Nelly?’’ he whispered, his cheek against her; “for some- 
how of late he has not seemed to me good enough for thee. 
He has got an inkling that something has gone wrong, and 

508 


A Dark Night’s Work 

he was very inquisitive — I may say he questioned me in a 
relentless kind of way.” 

“ Oh, papa, it was my doing, I’m afraid. I said some- 
thing long ago about possible disgrace.” 

He pushed her away ; he stood up, and looked at her 
with the eyes dilated, half in fear, half in fierceness, of an 
animal at bay ; he did not heed that his abrupt movement 
had almost thrown her prostrate on the ground. 

“ You, Ellinor ! You — you ” 

“ Oh, darling father, listen ! ” said she, creeping to his 
knees, and clasping them with her hands. “ I said it, as if 
it were a possible case, of some one else — last August — but 
he immediately applied it, and asked me if it was over me 
the disgrace, or shame — I forget the words we used — hung; 
and what could I say ? ” 

“ Anything — anything, to put him off the scent I God 
help me, I am a lost man, betrayed by my child ! ” 

Ellinor let go his knees, and covered her face. Every 
one stabbed at that poor heart. In a minute or so, her 
father spoke again. 

“ I don’t mean what I say. I often don’t mean it now. 
Ellinor, you must forgive me, my child ! ” He stooped, and 
lifted her up, and sat down, taking her on his knee, and 
smoothing her hair off her hot forehead. “ Eemember, 
child, how very miserable I am, and have forgiveness for 
me ! He had none, and yet he must have seen I had been 
drinking.” 

“ Drinking, papa ! ” said Ellinor, raising her head, and 
looking at him with sorrowful surprise. 

“ Yes. I drink now, to try and forget,” said he, blushing 
and confused. 

“ Oh, how miserable we are ! ” cried Ellinor, bursting 
into tears — “how very miserable! It seems almost as if 
God had forgotten to comfort us ! ” 

“ Hush I hush ! ” said he. “ Your mother said once, she 
did so pray that you might grow up religious ; you must be 
religious, child, because she prayed for it so often. Poor 

509 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Lettice, how glad I am that you are dead 1 ” Here he began 
to cry like a child. Ellinor comforted him with kisses rather 
than words. He pushed her away, after a while, and said 
sharply : “ How much does he know ? I must make sure 
of that. How much did you tell him, Ellinor ? ” 

“ Nothing — nothing, indeed, papa, but what I told you 
just now ! ” 

“ Tell it me again — the exact words 1 ” 

** I will, as well as I can ; but it was last August. I only 
said, * Was it right for a woman to marry, knowing that 
disgrace hung over her, and keeping her lover in ignorance 
of it?"’ 

“ That was all, you are sure ? ” 

“Yes. He immediately applied the case to me — to 
ourselves.” 

“ And he never wanted to know what was the nature of 
the threatened disgrace ? ” 

“ Yes, he did.” 

“ And you told him ? ” 

“ No, not a word more. He referred to the subject again 
to-day, in the shrubbery; but I told him nothing more. 
You quite believe me, don’t you, papa ? ” 

He pressed her to him, but did not speak. Then he took 
the note up again, and read it with as much care and atten- 
tion as he could collect in his agitated state of mind. 

“ Nelly,” said he at length, “ he says true ; he is not 
good enough for thee. He shrinks from the thought of the 
disgrace. Thou must stand alone, and bear the sins of thy 
father.” 

He shook so much as he said this, that Ellinor had to 
put any suffering of her own on one side, and try to confine 
her thoughts to the necessity of getting her father imme- 
diately up to bed. She sat by him till he went to sleep, and 
she could leave him, and go to her own room, to forgetful- 
ness and rest — if she could find those priceless blessings. 


A Dark Night’s Work 


CHAPTEE X 

Mr. Corbet was so well known at the Parsonage by the two 
old servants, that he had no difficulty, on reaching it, after 
his departure from Ford Bank, in having the spare-bed- 
chamber made ready for him, late as it was, and in the 
absence of the master, who had taken a little holiday, now 
that Lent and Easter were over, for the purpose of fishing. 
While his room was getting ready, Ealph sent for his clothes, 
and by the same messenger he despatched the little note to 
Ellinor. But there was the letter he had promised her in 
it still to be written ; and it was almost his night’s employ- 
ment to say enough, yet not too much ; for, as he expressed 
it to himself, he was half way over the stream, and it would 
be folly to turn back, for he had given nearly as much pain 
both to himself and Ellinor by this time as he should do by 
making the separation final. Besides, after Mr. Wilkins’s 
speeches that evening — but he was candid enough to 
acknowledge that, bad and offensive as they had been, if 
they had stood alone they might have been condoned. 

His letter ran as follows : — 

“ Dearest Ellinor, for dearest you are, and I think 
will ever be, my judgment has consented to a step which is 
giving me great pain, greater than you will readily believe. 
I am convinced that it is better that we should part ; for 
circumstances have occurred since we formed our engage- 
ment which, although I am unaware of their exact nature, 
I can see weigh heavily upon you, and have materially 
affected your father’s behaviour — nay, I think, after to-night, 
I may almost say have entirely altered his feelings towards 
me. What these circumstances are I am ignorant, any 
further than that I know from your own admission, that 
they may lead to some future disgrace. Now, it may be my 
fault, it may be in my temperament, to be anxious, above all 

511 


A Dark Night’s Work 

things earthly, to obtain and possess a high reputation. I 
can only say that it is so, and leave you to blame me for my 
weakness as much as you like. But anything that might 
come in between me and this object would, I own, be HI 
tolerated by me ; the very dread of such an obstacle inter- 
vening would paralyse me. I should become irritable, and, 
deep as my affection is, and always must be, towards you, I 
could not promise you a happy, peaceful life. I should be 
perpetually haunted by the idea of what might happen in 
the way of discovery and shame. I am the more convinced 
of this from my observation of your father’s altered character 
— an alteration which I trace back to the time when I con- 
jecture that the secret affairs took place to which you have 
alluded. In short, it is for your sake, my dear Ellinor, even 
more than for my own, that I feel compelled to afi&x a final 
meaning to the words which your father addressed to me 
last night, when he desired me to leave his house for ever. 
God bless you, my Ellinor — for the last time my Ellinor ! 
Try to forget, as soon as you can, the unfortunate tie which 
has bound you for a time to one so unsuitable — I believe I 
ought to say so unworthy of you — as — Ealph Gobbet.” 

Ellinor was making breakfast, when this letter was given 
her. According to the wont of the servants of the respective 
households of the Parsonage and Ford Bank, the man asked 
if there was any answer. It was only custom ; for he had 
not been desired to do so. Ellinor went to the window to 
read her letter ; the man waiting all the time respectfully 
for her reply. She went to the writing-table, and wrote — 

“ It is all right — quite right. I ought to have thought of 
it all last August. I do not think you will forget me easily ; 
but I entreat you never at any future time to blame yourself. 
I hope you will be happy and successful. I suppose I must 
never write to you again : but I shall always pray for you. 
Papa was very sorry last night for having spoken angrily to 
you. You must forgive him — there is great need for for- 
giveness in this world. — Ellinob.” 

512 


A Dark Night’s Work 

She kept putting down thought after thought, just to 
prolong the last pleasure of writing to him. She sealed the 
note, and gave it to the man. Then she sat down and 
waited for Miss Monro, who had gone to bed on the previous 
night without awaiting Ellinor’s return from the dining-room. 

“ I am late, my dear,” said Miss Monro, on coming down, 
“ but I have a bad headache, and I knew you had a pleasant 
companion.” Then, looking round, she perceived Ealph’s 
absence. 

“ Mr. Corbet not down yet ! ” she exclaimed. And then 
Elhnor had to tell her the outline of the facts so soon likely 
to be made public ; that Mr. Corbet and she had determined 
to break off their engagement ; and that Mr. Corbet had 
accordingly betaken himself to the Parsonage ; and that she 
did not expect him to return again to Ford Bank. Miss 
Monro’s astonishment was unbounded. She kept going 
over and over all the little circumstances she had noticed 
during the last visit, only yesterday, in fact, which she could 
not reconcile with the notion that the two, apparently so 
much attached to each other but a few hours before, were 
now to be for ever separated and estranged. Ellinor 
sickened under the torture ; which yet seemed like torture 
in a dream, from which there must come an awakening and 
a relief. She felt as if she could not bear any more ; yet 
there was more to bear. Her father, as it turned out, was 
very ill, and had been so all night long ; he had .evidently 
had some kind of attack on the brain, whether apoplectic or 
paralytic it was for the doctors to decide. In the hurry and 
anxiety of this day of misery succeeding to misery, she 
almost forgot to wonder whether Ealph were still at the 
Parsonage — still in Hamley ; it was not till the evening visit 
of the physician that she learnt that he had been seen by 
Dr. Moore as he was taking his place in the morning mail 
to London. Dr. Moore alluded to his name as to a thought 
that would cheer and comfort the fragile girl during her 
night-watch by her father’s bedside. But Miss Monro stole 
out after the doctor, to warn him off the subject for the 

513 2 L 


A Dark Night’s Work 

future, crying bitterly over the forlorn position of her darling 
as she spoke — crying as EUinor had never yet been able to 
cry ; though all the time, in the pride of her sex, she was 
endeavouring to persuade the doctor it was entirely EUinor's 
doing, and the wisest and best thing she could have done, 
as he was not good enough for her, only a poor barrister 
struggling for a livelihood. Like many other kind-hearted 
people, she fell into the blunder of lowering the moral 
character of those whom it is their greatest wish to exalt. 
But Dr. Moore knew EUinor too well to believe the whole of 
what Miss Monro said ; she would never act from interested 
motives, and was all the more likely to cling to a man 
because he was down and unsuccessful. No! there had 
been a lovers’ quarrel ; and it could not have happened at a 
sadder time. 

Before the June roses were in full bloom, Mr. Wilkins 
was dead. He had left his daughter to the guardianship of 
Mr. Ness by some wUl made years ago ; but Mr. Ness had 
caught a rheumatic fever with his Easter fishings, and could 
not for some time be moved home from the little Welsh inn 
where he had been staying when he was taken ill. Since 
his last attack, Mr. Wilkins’s mind had been much affected ; 
he often talked strangely and wildly; but he had rare 
intervals of quietness and full possession of his senses. At 
one of these times he must have written a half-finished 
pencil note, which his nurse found under his pillow after his 
death, and brought to EUinor. Through her tear-blinded 
eyes she read the weak, faltering words — 

“I am very iU. I sometimes think I shaU never get 
better ; so I wish to ask your pardon for what I said the 
night before I was taken Ul. I am afraid my anger made 
mischief between you and EUinor; but I think you wiU 
forgive a dying man. If you will come back and let all be 
as it used to be, I wiU make any apology you may require. 
If I go, she wiU be so very friendless ; and I have looked to 

you to care for her ever since you first ” Then came 

some iUegible and incoherent writing, ending with, “ From 

514 


A Dark Night’s Work 

my deathbed I adjure you to stand her friend ; I will beg 
pardon on my knees for anything ” 

And there strength had failed ; the paper and pencil had 
been laid aside, to be resumed at some time when the brain 
was clearer, the hand stronger. Ellinor kissed the letter, 
reverently folded it up, and laid it among her sacred treasures, 
by her mother’s half-finished sewing, and a little curl of her 
baby sister’s golden hair. 

Mr. Johnson, who had been one of the trustees for Mrs. 
Wilkins’s marriage settlement, a respectable solicitor in the 
county town, and Mr. Ness, had been appointed executors of 
his will, and guardians to Ellinor. The will itself had been 
made several years before, when he imagined himself the 
possessor of a handsome fortune, the bulk of which he 
bequeathed to his only child. By her mother’s marriage- 
settlement, Ford Bank was held in trust for the children of 
the marriage ; the trustees being Sir Frank Holster and Mr. 
Johnson. There were legacies to his executors ; a small 
annuity to Miss Monro, with the expression of a hope that 
it might be arranged for her to continue living with Ellinor 
as long as the latter remained unmarried ; all his servants 
were remembered, Dixon especially, and most liberally. 

What remained of the handsome fortune once possessed 
by the testator ? The executors asked in vain ; there was 
nothing. They could hardly make out what had become of 
it, in such utter confusion were all the accounts, both 
personal and official. Mr. Johnson was hardly restrained 
by his compassion for the orphan from throwing up the 
executorship in disgust. Mr. Ness roused himself from his 
scholarlike abstraction to labour at the examination of books, 
parchments, and papers, for Ellinor’s sake. Sir Frank 
Holster professed himself only a trustee for Ford Bank. 

Meanwhile she went on living at Ford Bank, quite un- 
conscious of the state of her father’s affairs, but sunk into a 
deep, plaintive melancholy, which affected her looks and the 
tones of her voice in such a manner as to distress Miss 
Monro exceedingly. It was not that the good lady did not 

515 


A Dark Night’s Work 

quite acknowledge the great cause her pupil had for grieving 
— deserted by her lover, her father dead— but that she could 
not bear the outward signs of how much these sorrows had 
told on Ellinor. Her love for the poor girl was infinitely 
distressed by seeing the daily wasting away, the constant 
heavy depression of spirits, and she grew impatient of the 
continual pain of sympathy. If Miss Monro could have 
done something to relieve Ellinor of her woe, she would 
have been less inclined to scold her for giving way to it. 

The time came when Miss Monro could act ; and after 
that, there was no more irritation on her part. When all 
hope of Ellinor ’s having anything beyond the house and 
grounds of Ford Bank was gone ; when it was proved that 
of all the legacies bequeathed by Mr. Wilkins not one farth- 
ing could ever be paid ; when it came to be a question how 
far the beautiful pictures and other objects of art in the 
house were not legally the property of unsatisfied creditors, 
the state of her father’s affairs was communicated to Elhnor 
as delicately as Mr. Ness knew how. 

She was drooping over her work — she always drooped 
now — and she left off sewing to listen to him, leaning her 
head on the arm which rested on the table. She did not 
speak when he had ended his statement. She was silent 
for whole minutes afterwards ; he went on speaking out of 
very agitation and awkwardness. 

It was all the rascal Dunster’s doing, I’ve no doubt,’* 
said he, trying to account for the entire loss of Mr. Wilkins’s 
fortune. 

To his surprise, she hfted up her white, stony face, and 
said, slowly and faintly, but with almost solemn calm- 
ness — 

“ Mr. Ness, you must never allow Mr. Dunster to bQ 
blamed for this I ” 

“ My dear Ellinor, there can be no doubt about it. Your 
father himself always referred to the losses he had sustained 
by Dunster’s disappearance.” 

Elhnor covered her face with her hands. “ God forgive 
516 


A Dark Night’s Work 

US all,” she said, and relapsed into the old unbearable silence. 
Mr. Ness had undertaken to discuss her future plans with 
her, and he was obliged to go on. 

“ Now, my dear child — I have known you since you were 
quite a little girl, you know — we must try not to give way 
to feeling ” — he himself was choking ; she was quite quiet — 
“ but think what is to be done. You will have the rent of 
this house, and we have a very good offer for it — a tenant 
on lease of seven years at a hundred and twenty pounds a 
year ” 

“I will never let this house,” said she, standing up 
suddenly, and as if defying him. 

Not let Ford Bank ! Why ? I don’t understand it — I 
can’t have been clear — Ellinor, the rent of this house is all 
you will have to live on ! ” 

“ I can’t help it, I can’t leave this house. Oh, Mr. Ness, 
I can’t leave this house.” 

“ My dear child, you shall not be hurried — I know how 
hardly all these things are coming upon you (and I wish I 
had never seen Corbet, with all my heart I do !) ” — this was 
almost to himself, but she must have heard it, for she 
quivered all over — “but leave this house you must. You 
must eat, and the rent of this house must pay for your food ; 
you must dress, and there is nothing but the rent to clothe 
you. I will gladly have you to stay at the Parsonage as 
long as ever you like ; but, in fact, the negotiations with 
Mr. Osbaldistone, the gentleman who offers to take the 
house, are nearly completed ” 

“ It is my house ! ” said Ellinor fiercely. “ I know it is 
settled on me.” 

“ No, my dear. It is held in trust for you by Sir Frank 
Holster and Mr. Johnson ; you to receive all moneys and 
benefits accruing from it ” — he spoke gently, for he almost 
thought her head was turned — but you remember you are 
not of age, and Mr. Johnson and I have full power.” 

Ellinor sat down, helpless. 

“ Leave me,” she said at length. “ You are very kind, 

5^7 


A Dark Night’s Work 

but you don’t know all. I cannot stand any more talking 
now,” she added faintly. 

Mr. Ness bent over her and kissed her forehead, and 
withdrew without another word. He went to Miss Monro. 

“Well! and how did you find her?” was her first in- 
quiry, after the usual greetings had passed between them. 
“It is really quite sad to see how she gives way ; I speak 
to her, and speak to her, and tell her how she is neglecting 
all her duties, and it does no good.” 

“ She has had to bear a still further sorrow to-day,” said 
Mr. Ness. “ On the part of Mr. Johnson and myself I have 
a very painful duty to perform to you as well as to her. 
Mr. Wilkins has died insolvent. I grieve to say there is no 
hope of your ever receiving any of your annuity.” 

Miss Monro looked very blank. Many happy httle 
visions faded away in those few moments ; then she roused 
up and said, “ I am but forty ; I have a good fifteen years of 
work in me left yet, thank God. Insolvent 1 Do you mean 
he has left no money ? ” 

“ Not a farthing. The creditors may be thankful if they 
are fully paid.” 

“ And Ellinor ? ” 

“ Ellinor will have the rent of this house, which is hers 
by right of her mother’s settlement, to live on.” 

“ How much will that be ? ” 

“ One hundred and twenty pounds.” 

Miss Monro’s lips went into a form prepared for 
whistling. Mr. Ness continued — 

“ She is at present imwilling enough to leave this house, 
poor girl. It is but natural ; but she has no power in the 
matter, even were there any other course open to her. I 
can only say how glad, how honoured, I shall feel by as long 
a visit as you and she can be prevailed upon to pay me at 
the Parsonage.” 

“ Where is Mr. Corbet ? ” said Miss Monro. 

“ I do not know. After breaking off his engagement, 
he wrote me a long letter, explanatory, as he called it; 

518 


A Dark Night’s Work 

exculpatory, as I termed it. I wrote back, curtly enough, 
saying that I regretted the breaking off of an intercourse 
which had always been very pleasant to me ; but that he must 
be aware that, with my intimacy with the family at Ford 
Bank, it would be both awkward and unpleasant to all parties 
if he and I remained on our previous footing. Who is that 
going past the window ? Ellinor riding ? ” 

Miss Monro went to the window. “ Yes ! I am thankful 
to see her on horseback again. It was only this morning I 
advised her to have a ride ! ” 

“ Poor Dixon ! he will suffer too ; his legacy can no more 
be paid than the others ; and it is not many young ladies 
who will be as content to have so old-fashioned a groom 
riding after them as Ellinor seems to be.” 

As soon as Mr. Ness had left, Miss Monro went to her 
desk and wrote a long letter to some friends she had at the 
cathedral town of East Chester, where she had spent some 
happy years of her former life. Her thoughts had gone 
back to this time even while Mr. Ness had been speaking ; 
for it was there her father had lived, and it was after his 
death that her cares in search of a subsistence had begun. 
But the recollections of the peaceful years spent there were 
stronger than the remembrance of the weeks of sorrow and 
care ; and, while Ellinor’s marriage had seemed a probable 
event, she had made many a little plan of returning to her 
native place, and obtaining what daily teaching she could 
there meet with; and the friends to whom she was now 
writing had promised her their aid. She thought that, as 
Ellinor had to leave Ford Bank, a home at a distance might 
be more agreeable to her, and she went on to plan that they 
should live together, if possible, on her earnings, and the 
small income that would be Ellinor’s. Miss Monro loved 
her pupil so dearly, that, if her own pleasure only were to 
be consulted, this projected life would be more agreeable to 
her than if Mr. Wilkins’s legacy had set her in independence, 
with Ellinor away from her, married, and with interests in 
which her former governess had but little part. 

519 


A Dark Night’s Work 

As soon as Mr. Ness had left her, Ellinor rang the bell, 
and startled the servant who answered it by her sudden 
sharp desire to have the horses at the door as soon as 
possible, and to tell Dixon to be ready to go out with her. 

She felt that she must speak to him, and in her nervous 
state she wanted to be out on the free broad common, where 
no one could notice or remark their talk. It was long since 
she had ridden, and much wonder was excited by the sudden 
movement in kitchen and stable-yard. But Dixon went 
gravely about his work of preparation, saying nothing. 

They rode pretty hard till they reached Monk’s Heath, 
six or seven miles away from Hamley. Ellinor had pre- 
viously determined that here she would talk over the plan 
Mr. Ness had proposed to her with Dixon ; and he seemed 
to understand her without any words passing between them. 
When she reined in he rode up to her, and met the gaze of 
her sad eyes with sympathetic, wistful silence. 

“ Dixon,” said she, “ they say I must leave Ford Bank.” 

“ I was afeared on it, from all I’ve heerd say i’ the town 
since the master’s death.” 

“ Then you’ve heard — then you know —that papa has 
left hardly any money— my poor dear Dixon, you won’t have 
your legacy, and I never thought of that before ! ” 

“ Never heed, never heed,” said he eagerly; “ I couldn’t 
have touched it if it had been there, for the taking it would 

ha’ seemed too like ” “ Blood-money ”, he was going to 

say, but he stopped in time. She guessed the meaning, 
though not the word he would have used. 

“ No, not that,” said she ; “ his will was dated years 
before. But oh, Dixon, what must I do ? They will make 
me leave Ford Bank, I see. I think the trustees have half 
let it already.” 

“ But you’ll have the rent on’t, I reckon ? ” asked he 
anxiously. “ I’ve many a time heerd ’em say as it was 
settled on the missus first, and then on you.” 

” Oh, yes, it is not that ; but you know, under the beech- 
tree ” 


520 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Ay ! ” said he heavily. “ It’s been oftentimes on my 
mind, waking, and I think there’s ne’er a night as I don’t 
dream of it.” 

“ But how can I leave it ? ” Ellinor cried. “ They may 
do a hundred things — may dig up the shrubbery. Oh ! 
Dixon, I feel as if it was sure to be found out ! Oh ! Dixon, 
I cannot bear any more blame on papa — it will kill me — ^ 
and such a dreadful thing, too ! ” 

Dixon’s face fell into the lines of habitual pain that it 
had always assumed of late years, whenever he was thinking 
or remembering anything. 

“ They must ne’er ha’ reason to speak ill of the dead, 
that’s for certain,” said he. “ The Wilkinses have been 
respected in Hamley all my lifetime, and all my father’s 
before me, and — surely, missy, there’s ways and means of 
tying tenants up from alterations both in the house and out 
of it ; and I’d beg the trustees, or whatever they’re called, to 
be very particular, if I was you, and not have a thing touched 
either in the house, or the gardens, or the meadows, or the 
stables. I think, wi’ a word from you, they’d maybe keep 
me on i’ the stables, and I could look after things a bit ; 
and the Day o’ Judgment will come at last, when all our 
secrets will be made known wi’out our having the trouble 
and the shame o’ teUing ’em. I’m getting rayther tired o’ 
this world. Miss Ellinor.” 

“ Don’t talk so,” said Ellinor tenderly. “ I know how 
sad it is, but, oh ! remember how I shall want a friend when 
you’re gone, to advise me as you have done to-day. You’re 
not feeling ill, Dixon, are you ? ” she continued anxiously. 

“ No ; I’m hearty enough, and likely for t’ live. Father 
was eighty-one, and mother above the seventies, when they 
died. It’s only my heart as is got to feel so heavy ; and as 
for that matter, so is yours. I’ll be bound. And it’s a comfort 
to us both if we can serve him as is dead by any care of ours, 
for he were such a bright, handsome lad, with such a cheery 
face, as never should ha’ known shame.” 

They rode on without much more speaking. Ellinor was 

521 


A Dark Night’s Work 

silently planning for Dixon, and he, not caring to look for- 
ward to the future, was bringing up before his fancy the 
time, thirty years ago, when he had first entered the elder 
Mr. Wilkins’s service as stable-lad, and pretty Molly, the 
scullery-maid, was his daily delight. Pretty Molly lay 
buried in Hamley churchyard, and few living, except Dixon, 
could have gone straight to her grave. 


CHAPTER XI 

In a few days. Miss Monro obtained a most satisfactory reply 
to her letter of inquiries as to whether a daily governess 
could find employment in East Chester. For once, the 
application seemed to have come just at the right time. The 
canons were most of them married men, with young families ; 
those at present in residence welcomed the idea of such 
instruction as Miss Monro could offer for their children, and 
could almost answer for their successors in office. This was 
a great step gained. Miss Monro, the daughter of a pre- 
centor to this very cathedral, had a secret unvrillingness to 
being engaged as a teacher by any wealthy tradesman there ; 
but to be received into the canons’ families, in almost any 
capacity, was like going home. Moreover, besides the 
empty honour of the thing, there were many small pieces of 
patronage in the gift of the Chapter — such as a small house 
opening on to the Close, which had formerly belonged to the 
verger, but which was now vacant, and was offered to Miss 
Monro at a nominal rent. 

Ellinor had once more sunk into her old depressed, 
passive state; Mr. Ness and Miss Monro, modest and 
undecided as they both were in general, had to fix and 
arrange everything for her. Her great interest seemed to 
be in the old servant Dixon, and her great pleasure to lie in 
seeing him, and talking over old times ; so her two friends 
talked about her, little knowing what a bitter, stinging pain 

522 


A Dark Night’s Work 

her “ pleasure ” was. In vain EUinor tried to plan how they 
could take Dixon with them to East Chester. If he had 
been a woman it would have been a feasible step ; but they 
were only to keep one servant, and Dixon, capable and 
versatile as he was, would not do for that servant. All this 
was what passed through Ellinor’s mind : it is still a question 
whether Dixon would have felt his love of his native place, 
with all its associations and his remembrances, or his love 
for EUinor, the stronger. But he was not put to the proof ; 
he was only told that he must quit her service ; and, seeing 
EUinor’s extreme grief at the idea of their separation, he set 
himself to comfort her by every means in his power, remind- 
ing her, with tender choice of words, how necessary it was 
that he should remain on the spot, in Mr. Osbaldistone’s 
service, in order to frustrate, by any smaU influence he might 
have, every project of alteration in the garden that contained 
the dreadful secret. He persisted in this view, though EUinor 
repeated, with pertinacious anxiety, the care which Mr. John- 
son had taken, in drawing up the lease, to provide against 
any change or alteration being made in the present dis- 
position of the house or grounds. 

People in general were rather astonished at the eagerness 
Miss Wilkins showed to sell all the Ford Bank furniture. 
Even Miss Monro was a little scandalised at this want of 
sentiment, although she said nothing about it ; indeed justified 
the step, by teUing every one how wisely EUinor was acting, 
as the large, handsome tables and chairs would be very much 
out of place and keeping in the small, oddly-shaped rooms 
of their future home in East Chester Close. None knew 
how strong was the instinct of self-preservation, it may 
almost be called, which impelled EUinor to shake off, at any 
cost of present pain, the incubus of a terrible remembrance. 
She wanted to go into an unhaunted dwelling in a free, 
unknown country — she felt as if it was her only chance of 
sanity. Sometimes, she thought her senses would not hold 
together till the time when all these arrangements were 
ended. But she did not speak to any one about her feeUngs, 

523 


A Dark Night’s Work 

poor child ; to whom could she speak on the subject but to 
Dixon ? Nor did she define them to herself. All she knew 
was, that she was as nearly going mad as possible ; and, if 
she did, she feared that she might betray her father’s guilt. 
All this time she never cried, or varied from her dull, passive 
demeanour. And they were blessed tears of relief that she 
shed when Miss Monro, herself weeping bitterly, told her to 
put her head out of the post-chaise window, for at the next 
turning of the road they would catch the last glimpse of 
Hamley church spire. 

Late one October evening, Ellinor had her first sight of 
East Chester Close, where she was to pass the remainder of 
her life. Miss Monro had been backwards and forwards 
between Hamley and East Chester more than once, while 
Ellinor remained at the Parsonage ; so she had not only the 
pride of proprietorship in the whole of the beautiful city, but 
something of the desire of hospitably welcoming Ellinor to 
their joint future home. 

“ Look ! the fly must take us a long round, because of 
our luggage ; but behind these high old walls are the canons’ 
gardens. That high-pitched roof, with the clumps of stone- 
crop on the walls near it, is Canon Wilson’s, whose four little 
girls I am to teach. Hark ! the great cathedral clock ! How 
proud I used to be of its great boom when I was a child ! I 
thought all the other church-clocks in the town sounded so 
shrill and poor after that, which I considered mine especially. 
There are rooks flying home to the elms in the Close. I 
wonder if they are the same that used to be there when I 
was a girl. They say the rook is a very long-lived bird, and 
I feel as if I could swear to the way they are cawing. Ay, 
you may smile, Ellinor, but I understand now those lines of 
Gray’s you used to say so prettily — 

‘ I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow. 

And breathe a second spring.’ 

Now, dear, you must get out. This flagged walk leads to 

524 


A Dark Night’s Work 

our front-door; but our back-rooms, which are the plea- 
santest, look on to the Close, and the cathedral, and the 
lime-tree walk, and the deanery, and the rookery.” 

It was a mere slip of a house ; the kitchen being wisely 
placed close to the front-door, and so reserving the pretty 
view for the little dining-room, out of which a glass-door 
opened into a small walled-in garden, which had again an 
entrance into the Close. Upstairs was a bedroom to the 
front, which Miss Monro had taken for herself, because, as 
she said, she had old associations with the back of every 
house in the High Street, while Ellinor mounted to the 
pleasant chamber above the tiny drawing-room, both of 
which looked on to the vast and solemn cathedral, and the 
peaceful dignified Close. East Chester Cathedral is Norman, 
Tvith a low, massive tower, a grand, majestic nave, and a 
choir full of stately historic tombs. The whole city is so 
quiet and decorous a place, that the perpetual daily chants 
and hymns of praise seemed to sound far and wide over the 
roofs of the houses. Ellinor soon became a regular attendant 
at all the morning- and evening- services. The sense of 
worship calmed and soothed her aching, weary heart, and, to 
be punctual to the cathedral hours, she roused and exerted 
herself, when probably nothing else would have been suffi- 
cient to this end. 

By-and-by, Miss Monro formed many acquaintances ; 
she picked up, or was picked up by, old friends and the 
descendants of old friends. The grave and kindly canons, 
whose children she taught, called upon her with their wives, 
and talked over the former deans and chapters, of whom she 
had both a personal and traditional knowledge ; and, as they 
walked away, they talked about her silent, delicate-looking 
friend Miss Wilkins, and perhaps planned some little present 
out of their fruitful garden or bounteous stores, which should 
make Miss Monro’s table a httle more tempting to one 
apparently so frail as Ellinor ; for the household was always 
spoken of as belonging to Miss Monro, the active and 
prominent person, By-and-by, Ellinor herself won her way 

525 


A Dark Night’s Work 

to their hearts, not by words or deeds, but by her sweet looks 
and meek demeanour, as they marked her regular attendance 
at the cathedral services ; and, when they heard of her constant 
visits to a certain parochial school, and of her being some- 
times seen carrying a little covered basin to the cottages of 
the poor, they began to try and tempt her, with more urgent 
words, to accompany Miss Monro in her frequent tea-drink- 
ings at their houses. The old dean, that courteous gentle- 
man and good Christian, had early become great friends 
with Ellinor. He would watch at the windows of his great 
vaulted library till he saw her emerge from the garden into | 
the Close, and then open the deanery door, and join her, i 
she softly adjusting the measure of her pace to his. The 
time of his departure from East Chester became a great [ 
blank in her life, although she would never accept, or allow 
Miss Monro to accept, his repeated invitations to go and pay 
him a visit at his country-place. Indeed, having once tasted 
comparative peace again in East Chester Cathedral Close, 
it seemed as though she was afraid of ever venturing out of 
those calm precincts. All Mr. Ness’s invitations to visit him 
at his parsonage at Hamley were declined, although he was 
welcomed at Miss Monro’s on the occasion of his annual 
visit, by every means in their power. He slept at one of the 
canon’s vacant houses, and lived with his two friends, who 
made a yearly festivity, to the best of their means, in his 
honour, inviting such of the cathedral clergy as were in 
residence, or, if they failed, condescending to the town 
clergy. Their friends knew well that no presents were so ^ 
acceptable as those sent while Mr. Ness was with them; 
and from the dean, who would send them a hamper of choice 
fruit and flowers from Oxton Park, down to the curate, who 
worked in the same schools as Ellinor, and who was a great 
fisher, and caught splendid trout — all did their best to help 
them to give a welcome to the only visitor they ever had. 
The only visitor they ever had — as far as the stately gentry 
knew. There was one, however, who came as often as his 
master could give him a holiday long enough to undertake a 

526 


A Dark Night’s Work 

journey to so distant a place ; but few knew of his being a 
guest at Miss Monro’s, though his welcome there was not 
less hearty than Mr. Ness’s — this was Dixon. Ellinor had 
convinced him that he could give her no greater pleasure at 
any time than by allowing her to frank him to and from 
East Chester. Whenever he came they were together the 
greater part of the day ; she taking him hither and thither 
to see all the sights that she thought would interest or please 
him ; but they spoke very little to each other during all this 
companionship. Miss Monro had much more to say to him. 
She questioned him right and left, whenever Elhnor was out 
of the room. She learnt that the house at Ford Bank was 
splendidly furnished, and no money spared on the garden ; 
that the eldest Miss Hanbury was very well married ; that 
Brown had succeeded to Jones in the haberdasher’s shop. 
Then she hesitated a little before making her next inquiry — 

“I suppose Mr. Corbet never comes to the Parsonage 
now ? ” 

“ No, not he. I don’t think as how Mr. Ness would 
have him ; but they write letters to each other by times. 
Old Job— you’ll recollect old Job, ma’am, he that gardened 
for Mr. Ness, and waited in the parlour, when there was 
company — did say as one day he heard them speaking about 
Mr. Corbet ; and he’s a grand counsellor now — one of them 
as goes about at assize- time, and speaks in a wig.” 

“ A barrister, you mean,” said Miss Monro. 

“ Ay ; and he’s something more than that, though I can’t 
rightly remember what.” 

Ellinor could have told them both. They had the Times 
lent to them on the second day after publication by one of 
their friends in the Close; and Ellinor, watching till Miss 
Monro’s eyes were otherwise engaged, always turned with 
trembling hands and a beating heart to the reports of the 
various courts of law. In them she found — at first rarely — 
the name she sought for, the name she dwelt upon, as if 
every letter were a study. Mr. Losh and Mr. Buncombe 
appeared for the plaintiff; Mr. Smythe and Mr. Corbet for 

527 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the defendant. In a year or two, that name appeared more 
frequently, and generally took the precedence of the other, 
whatever it might be ; then on special occasions his speeches 
were reported at full length, as if his words were accounted 
weighty ; and by-and-by she saw that he had been appointed 
a Queen’s Counsel. And this was all she ever heard or saw 
about him ; his once familiar name never passed her bps, 
except in hurried whispers to Dixon, when he came to stay 
with them. EUinor had had no idea, when she parted from 
Mr. Corbet, how total the separation between them was 
henceforward to be, so much seemed left unfinished, un- 
explained. It was so difficult, at first, to break herself of 
the habit of constant mental reference to him ; and for many 
a long year she kept thinking that surely some kind fortune 
would bring them together again, and all this heart-sickness 
and melancholy estrangement from each other would then 
seem to both only as an ugly dream that had passed away 
in the morning light. 

The dean was an old man, but there was a canon who 
was older still, and whose death had been expected by many, 
and speculated upon by some, any time for ten years at least. 
Canon Holdsworth was too old to show active kindness to 
any one; the good dean’s life was full of thoughtful and 
benevolent deeds. But he was taken, and the other left. 
Ellinor looked out at the vacant deanery with tearful eyes — 
the last thing at night, the first in the morning. But it is 
pretty nearly the same with church dignitaries as with kings ; 
the dean is dead, long live the dean ! A clergyman from a 
distant county was appointed, and all the Close was astir to 
learn and hear every particular connected with him. Luckily, 
he came in at the tag-end of one of the noble families in the 
peerage ; so, at any rate, all his future associates could learn 
with tolerable certainty that he was forty-two years of age, 
married, and with eight daughters and one son. The 
deanery, formerly so quiet and sedate a dwelling of the one 
old man, was now to be filled with noise and merriment. 
Iron railings were being placed before three windows, 

528 


A Dark Night’s Work 

evidently to be the nursery. In the summer publicity of 
open windows and doors, the sound of the busy carpenters 
was perpetually heard all over the Close; and, by-and-by, 
waggon-loads of furniture and carriage-loads of people began 
to arrive. Neither Miss Monro nor Ellinor felt themselves 
of sufficient importance or station to call on the new-comers ; 
but they were as well acquainted with the proceedings of the 
family as if they had been in daily intercourse ; they knew 
that the eldest Miss Beauchamp was seventeen, and very 
pretty, only one shoulder was higher than the other; that 
she was dotingly fond of dancing, and talked a great deal in 
a tete-a-tUe, but not much if her mamma was by, and never 
i opened her lips at all if the dean was in the room ; that the 
; next sister was wonderfully clever, and was supposed to 
know all the governess could teach her, and to have private 
lessons in Greek and mathematics from her father ; and so 
on down to the little boy at the preparatory school and the 
baby-girl in arms. Moreover, Miss Monro, at any rate, 
could have stood an examination as to the number of servants 
at the deanery, their division of work, and the hours of their 
meals. Presently, a very beautiful, haughty-looking young 
lady made her appearance in the Close, and in the dean’s 
seats. She was said to be his niece, the orphan daughter of 
his brother. General Beauchamp, come to East Chester to 
reside for the necessary time before her marriage, which was 
to be performed in the cathedral by her uncle, the new 
dignitary. But as callers at the deanery did not see this 
beautiful bride-elect, and as the Beauchamps had not as yet 
fallen into habits of intimacy with any of their new acquaint- 
ances, very httle was known of the circumstances of this 
approaching wedding beyond the particulars given above. 

Ellinor and Miss Monro sat at their drawing-room win- 
dow, a little shaded by the muslin curtains, watching the 
busy preparations for the marriage, which was to take 
place the next day. All morning long, hampers of fruit 
and flowers, boxes from the railway — for by this time 
East Chester had got a railway— shop messengers, hired 

529 2 M 


A Dark Night’s Work 

assistants, kept passing backwards and forwards in the busy 
Close. Towards afternoon the bustle subsided, the scaffold- 
ing was up, the materials for the next day’s feast carried out 
of sight. It was to be concluded that the bride-elect was 
seeing to the packing of her trousseau, helped by the merry 
multitude of cousins, and that the servants were arranging 
the dinner for the day, or the breakfast for the morrow. So 
Miss Monro had settled it, discussing every detail and every 
probability, as though she were a chief actor, instead of only 
a distant, uncared-for spectator of the coming event. Ellinor 
was tired ; and, now that there was nothing interesting going 
on, she had fallen back to her sewing, when she was startled 
by Miss Monro’s exclamation — 

“ Look, look ! here are two gentlemen coming along the 
lime-tree walk! it must be the bridegroom and his friend.” 
Out of much sympathy, and some curiosity, Ellinor bent 
forward, and saw, just emerging from the shadow of the 
trees on to the full afternoon- sunlit pavement, Mr. Corbet 
and another gentleman ; the former changed, worn, aged, 
though with still the same fine, intellectual face, leaning on 
the arm of the younger, taller man, and talking eagerly. 
The other gentleman was doubtless the bridegroom, Ellinor 
said to herself ; and yet her prophetic heart did not believe 
her words. Even before the bright beauty at the deanery 
looked out of the great oriel window of the drawing-room, 
and blushed, and smiled, and kissed her hand — a gesture 
replied to by Mr. Corbet with much empressement, while the 
other man only took off his hat, almost as if he saw her 
there for the first time — Ellinor’s greedy eyes watched him 
till he was hidden from sight in the deanery, unheeding 
Miss Monro’s eager, incoherent sentences, in turn entreating, 
.apologising, comforting, and upbraiding. Then she slowly 
turned her painful eyes upon Miss Monro’s face, and moved 
her lips without a sound being heard, and fainted dead away. 
In all her life she had never done so before, and when she 
came round she was not hke herself ; in all probabihty the 
persistence and wilfulness she, who was usually so meek 

530 


A Dark Night’s Work 

and docile, showed during the next twenty-four hours, was 
the consequence of fever. She resolved to be present at the 
wedding ; numbers were going ; she would be unseen, un- 
noticed in the crowd; but, whatever befell, go she would, 
and neither the tears nor the prayers of Miss Monro could 
keep her back. She gave no reason for this determination ; 
indeed, in all probability she had none to give ; so there was 
no arguing the point. She was inflexible to entreaty, and 
no one had any authority over her, except, perhaps, distant 
Mr. Ness. Miss Monro had all sorts of forebodings as to 
the possible scenes that might come to pass. But all went 
on as quietly as though the fullest sympathy pervaded every 
individual of the great numbers assembled. No one guessed 
that the muffled, veiled figure, sitting in the shadow behind 
one of the great pillars, was that of one who had once hoped 
to stand at the altar with the same bridegroom, who now 
cast tender looks at the beautiful bride ; her veil white and 
fairy-like, Ellinor’s black and shrouding as that of any nun. 

Already Mr. Corbet’s name was known through the 
country as that of a great lawyer; people discussed his 
speeches and character far and wide ; and the well-informed 
in legal gossip spoke of him as sure to be offered a judgeship 
at the next vacancy. So he, though grave, and middle-aged, 
and -somewhat grey, divided attention and remark with his 
lovely bride, and her pretty train of cousin bridesmaids. 
Miss Monro need not have feared for Ellinor : she saw and 
heard all things as in a mist— a dream ; as something she 
had to go through, before she could waken up to a reality 
of brightness in which her youth, and the hopes of her 
youth, should be restored, and all these weary years of 
dreaminess and woe should be revealed as nothing but the 
nightmare of a night. She sat motionless enough, still 
enough. Miss Monro by her, watching her as intently as 
a keeper watches a madman, and with the same purpose — 
to prevent any outburst even by bodily strength, if such 
restraint be needed. When all was over ; when the principal 
personages of the ceremony had filed into the vestry to sign 

531 


A Dark Night’s Work 

their names ; when the swarm of townspeople were going 
out as swiftly as their individual notions of the restraints of 
the sacred edifice permitted; when the great chords of the 
“Wedding March” clanged out from the organ, and the 
loud bells pealed overhead — Ellinor laid her hand in Miss 
Monro’s. “ Take me home,” she said softly. And Miss 
Monro led her home, as one leads the blind. 


CHAPTEE XII 

There are some people who imperceptibly float away from 
their youth into middle age, and thence pass into declining 
life with the soft and gentle motion of happy years. There 
are others who are whirled, in spite of themselves, down 
dizzy rapids of agony away from their youth at one great 
bound, into old age with another sudden shock ; and thence 
into the vast, calm ocean, where there are no shore-marks 
to tell of time. 

This last, it seemed, was to be Ellinor’s lot. Her youth 
had gone in a single night, fifteen years ago, and now she 
appeared to have become an elderly woman ; very still- and 
hopeless in look and movement, but as sweet and gentle in 
speech and smile as ever she had been in her happiest days. 
All young people, when they came to know her, loved W 
dearly, though at first they might call her dull, and heavy to 
get on with ; and as for children and old people, her ready 
watchful sympathy in their joys as well as their sorrows was 
an unfaihng passage to their hearts. After the first great 
shock of Mr. Corbet’s marriage was over, she seemed to pass 
into a greater peace than she had known for years ; the last 
faint hope of happiness was gone — it would, perhaps, be 
more accurate to say, of the bright happiness she had planned 
for herself in her early youth. Unconsciously, she was being 
weaned from self-seeking in any shape, and her daily life 

532 


A Dark Night’s Work 

became, if possible, more innocent and pure and holy. One 
of the canons used to laugh at her for her constant attendance 
at all the services, and for her devotion to good works, and 
call her always the reverend sister. Miss Monro was a 
little annoyed at this faint clerical joke ; Ellinor smiled 
quietly. Miss Monro disapproved of EUinor’s grave ways 
and sober severe style of dress. 

I “ You may be as good as you like, my dear, and yet go 

dressed in some pretty colour, instead of those perpetual 
blacks and greys ; and then there would be no need for me to 
be perpetually telling people you are only four-and-thirty (and 
they don’t believe me, though I tell them so till I am black 
in the face). Or, if you would but wear a decent-shaped 
bonnet, instead of always wearing those poky shapes in 
fashion when you were seventeen.” 

The old canon died, and some one was to be appointed in 
his stead. These clerical preferments and appointments 
were the all-important interests to the inhabitants of the 
Close, and the discussion of probabilities came up invariably 
if any two met together in street or house, or even in the 
very cathedral itself. At length it was settled and announced 
by the higher powers. An energetic, hard-working clergy- 
man from a distant part of the diocese, Livingstone by name, 
was to have the vacant canonry. 

Miss Monro said that the name was somehow familiar 
to her ; and, by degrees, she recollected the young curate who 
had come to inquire after Ellinor in that dreadful illness she 
had had at Hamley in the year 1829. Ellinor knew nothing 
of that visit; no more than Miss Monro did of what had 
passed between the two before that anxious night. Ellinor 
just thought it possible it might be the same Mr. Livingstone, 
and would rather it were not ; because she did not feel as if 
she could bear the frequent, though not intimate, intercourse 
she must needs have, if such were the case, with one so 
closely associated with that great time of terror which she 
was striving to bury out of sight by every effort in her 
power. Miss Monro, on the contrary, was busy weaving 

533 


A Dark Night’s Work 

a romance for her pupil; she thought of the passionate 
interest displayed by the fair young clergyman fifteen years 
ago, and believed that occasionally men could be constant, 
and hoped that, if Mr. Livingstone were the new canon, he 
might prove the rara avis which exists but once in a century. 
He came, and it was the same. He looked a little stouter, 
a little older, but had still the gait and aspect of a young 
man. His smooth fair face was scarcely lined at all with 
any marks of care ; the blue eyes looked so kindly and peace- 
ful that Miss Monro could scarcely fancy they were the same 
which she had seen fast filling with tears ; the bland calm 
look of the whole man needed the ennoblement of his evident 
devoutness to be raised into the type of holy innocence which 
some of the Eoman Catholics call the “ sacerdotal face.” 
His entire soul was in his work, and he looked as little likely 
to step forth in the character of either a hero of romance or 
a faithful lover as could be imagined. Still Miss Monro was 
not discouraged; she remembered the warm, passionate 
feeling she had once seen break through the calm exterior, 
and she believed that what had happened once might occur 
again. 

Of course, while all eyes were directed on the new canon, 
he had to learn who the possessors of those eyes were, one 
by one ; and it was probably some time before the idea came 
into his mind that Miss Wilkins, the lady in black, with the 
sad pale face, so constant an attendant at service, so regular 
a visitor at the school, was the same Miss Wilkins as the 
bright vision of his youth. It was her sweet smile at a 
painstaking child that betrayed her — if, indeed, betrayal it 
might be called where there was no wish or effort to conceal 
anything. Canon Livingstone left the schoolroom almost 
directly, and, after being for an hour or so in his house, went 
out to call on Mrs. Eandall, the person who knew more of 
her neighbours’ affairs than any one in East Chester. 

The next day, he called on Miss Wilkins herself. She 
would have been very glad if he had kept on in his ignorance ; 
it was so keenly painful to be in the company of one the 

534 


I 


A Dark Night’s Work 

sight of whom, even at a distance, had brought her such a 
keen remembrance of past misery; and, when told of his 
call, as she was sitting at her sewing in the dining-room, she 
had to nerve herself for the interview before going upstairs 
into the drawing-room, where he was being entertained by 
Miss Monro with warm demonstrations of welcome. A 
little contraction of the brow, a little compression of the lips, 
an increased pallor on Ellinor’s part, was all that Miss 
Monro could see in her, though she had put on her glasses 
with foresight and intention to observe. She turned to the 
canon ; his colour had certainly deepened as he went for- 
wards with outstretched hand to meet Ellinor. That was 
all that was to be seen ; but on the slight foundation of that 
blush Miss Monro built many castles ; and when they faded 
away, one by one, she recognised that they were only 
baseless visions. She used to put the disappointment of 
her hopes down to Ellinor’s unvaried calmness of demeanour, 
which might be taken for coldness of disposition ; and to her 
steady refusal to allow Miss Monro to invite Canon Living- 
stone to the small teas they were in the habit of occasionally 
giving. Yet he persevered in his calls; about once every 
fortnight he came, and would sit an hour or more, looking 
covertly at his watch, as if, as Miss Monro shrewdly observed 
to herself, he did not go away at last because he wished to 
do so, but because he ought. Sometimes ElHnor was 
present, sometimes she was away ; in this latter case Miss 
Monro thought she could detect a certain wistful watching 
of the door every time a noise was heard outside the room. 
He always avoided any reference to former days at Hamley ; 
and that. Miss Monro feared, was a bad sign. 

After this long uniformity of years without any event 
closely touching on Ellinor’s own individual life, with the 
one great exception of Mr. Corbet’s marriage, something 
happened which much affected her. Mr. Ness died suddenly 
at his parsonage, and Ellinor learnt it first from Mr. Brown, 
a clergyman, whose living was near Hamley, and who had 
been sent for by the Parsonage servants, as soon as they 

535 


A Dark Night’s Work 

discovered that it was not sleep, but death, that made their 
master so late in rising. 

Mr. Brown had been appointed executor by his late 
friend, and wrote to tell Ellinor that, after a few legacies 
were paid, she was to have a life-interest in the remainder 
of the small property which Mr. Ness had left, and that it 
would be necessary for her, as the residuary legatee, to come 
to Hamley Parsonage as soon as convenient, to decide upon 
certain courses of action with regard to furniture, books, &c. 

Ellinor shrank from this journey, which her love and 
duty towards her dead friend rendered necessary. She had 
scarcely left East Chester since she first arrived there, 
sixteen or seventeen years ago, and she was timorous about 
the very mode of travelling ; and then to go back to Hamley, 
which she thought never to have seen again 1 She never 
spoke much about any feelings of her own ; but Miss Monro 
could always read her silence, and interpreted it into pretty 
just and forcible words that afternoon, when Canon Living- 
stone called. She liked to talk about Ellinor to him, and 
suspected that he hked to hear. She was almost annoyed 
this time by the comfort he would keep giving her; there 
was no greater danger in travelling by railroad than by 
coach ; a little care about certain things was required, that 
was all, and the average number of deaths by accidents on 
railroads was not greater than the average number when 
people travelled by coach, if you took into consideration the 
far greater number of travellers. Yes ! returning to the 
deserted scenes of one’s youth was very painful. . . . Had 
Miss Wilkins made any provision for another lady to take 
her place as visitor at the school ? He believed it was her 
week. Miss Monro was out of all patience at his entire 
calmness and reasonableness. Later in the day she became 
more at peace with him, when she received a kind little note 
from Mrs. Forbes, a great friend of hers, and the mother of 
the family she was now teaching, saying that Canon 
Livingstone had called and told her that Ellinor had to go 
QU a very painful journey, and that Mrs. Forbes was quite 


A Dark Night’s Work 

sure Miss Monro’s companionship upon it would be a great 
comfort to both, and that she could perfectly be set at liberty 
for a fortnight or so ; for it would fall in admirably with the 
fact that “Jeanie was growing tall, and the doctor had 
advised sea air this spring ; so a month’s holiday would suit 
them now even better than later on.” Was this going 
straight to Mrs. Forbes, to whom she should herself scarcely 
have liked to name it, the act of a good, thoughtful man, or 
of a lover? questioned Miss Monro; but she could not 
answer her own inquiry, and had to be very grateful for the 
deed, without accounting for the motives. 

A coach met the train at a station about ten miles from 
Hamley, and Dixon was at the inn where the coach stopped, 
ready to receive them. 

The old man was almost in tears at the sight of them 
again in a familiar place. He had put on his Sunday clothes 
to do them honour ; and to conceal his agitation he kept up 
a pretended bustle about their luggage. To the indignation 
of the inn- porters, who were of a later generation, he would 
wheel it himself to the Parsonage; though he broke down 
from fatigue once or twice on the way, and had to stand 
and rest, his ladies waiting by his side, and making remarks 
on the alterations of houses and the places of trees, in order 
to give him ample time to recruit himself ; for there was no 
one to wait for them and give them a welcome to the Parson- 
age, which was to be their temporary home. The respectful 
servants, in deep mourning, had everything prepared, 
and gave Ellinor a note from Mr. Brown, saying that he 
purposely refrained from disturbing them that day after their 
long journey, but would call on the morrow, and tell them 
of the arrangements he had thought of making, always 
subject to Miss Wilkins’s approval. 

These were simple enough; certain legal forms to be 
gone through, any selections from books or furniture to be 
made, and the rest to be sold by auction as speedily as 
convenient, as the successor to the living might wish to have 
repairs and alterations effected in the old parsonage. For 

537 


A Dark Night’s Work 

some days Ellinor employed herself in business in the house, 
never going out except to church. Miss Monro, on the 
contrary, strolled about everywhere, noticing all the altera- 
tions in place and people, which were never improvements 
in her opinion. Ellinor had plenty of callers (her tenants, 
Mr. and Mrs. Osbaldistone, among others) ; but, excepting 
in rare cases — most of these belonged to humble life — she 
declined to see any one, as she had business enough on 
her hands : sixteen years makes a great difference in any 
set of people. The old acquaintances of her father in his 
better days were almost all dead or had removed; there 
were one or two remaining, and these Ellinor received ; one 
or two more, old and infirm, confined to their houses, she 
planned to call upon before leaving Hamley. Every even- 
ing, when Dixon had done his work at Mr. Osbaldistone’s, 
he came up to the parsonage, ostensibly to help her in 
moving or packing books, but really because these two 
clung to each other — were bound to each other by a bond 
never to be spoken about. It was understood between them 
that, once before Ellinor left, she should go and see the old 
place, Ford Bank. Not to go into the house, though Mr. 
and Mrs. Osbaldistone had begged her to name her own 
time for revisiting it, when they and their family would be 
absent ; but to see all the gardens and grounds once more — 
a solemn, miserable visit, which, because of the very misery 
it involved, appeared to Ellinor to be an imperative duty. 

Dixon and she talked together as she sat making a 
catalogue one evening in the old low-browed library ; the 
casement windows were open into the garden, and the May 
showers had brought out the scents of the new-leaved sweet- 
briar bush just below. Beyond the garden hedge the grassy 
meadows sloped away down to the river; the Parsonage 
was so much raised that, sitting in the house, you could see 
over the boundary hedge. Men with instruments were busy 
in the meadow. Ellinor, pausing in her work, asked Dixon 
what they were doing. 

“ Them’s the people for the new railway,” said he. 

538 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Nought would satisfy the Hamley folk but to have a 
railway all to themselves — coaches isn’t good enough 
now-a-days.” 

He spoke with a tone of personal offence natural to a 
man who had passed all his life among horses, and considered 
railway-engines as their despicable rivals, conquering only 
by stratagem. 

By-and-by Ellinor passed on to a subject the considera- 
tion of which she had repeatedly urged upon Dixon, and 
entreated him to come and form one of their household at 
East Chester. He was growing old, she thought, older even 
in looks and feelings than in years, and she would make him 
happy and comfortable in his declining years if he would 
but come and pass them under her care. The addition 
which Mr. Ness’s bequest made to her income would enable 
her to do not only this, but to relieve Miss Monro of her 
occupation of teaching ; which, at the years she had arrived 
at, was becoming burdensome. When she proposed the 
removal to Dixon, he shook his head. 

“It’s not that I don’t thank you, and kindly, too; but 
I’m too old to go chopping and changing.’’ 

“ But it would be no change to come back to me, Dixon,” 
said Ellinor. 

“ Yes, it would. I were born i’ Hamley, and it’s i’ 
Hamley I reckon to die.” 

On her urging him a little more, it came out that he had 
a strong feeling that, if he did not watch the spot where the 
dead man lay buried, the whole would be discovered; and 
that this dread of his had often poisoned the pleasure of his 
visit to East Chester. 

“ I don’t rightly know how it is, for I sometimes think, if 
it wasn’t for you, missy, I should be glad to have made it all 
clear before I go ; and yet at times I dream, or it comes into 
my head as I lie awake with the rheumatics, that some one 
is there, digging ; or that I hear ’em cutting down the tree ; 
and then I get up and look out of the loft window — you’ll 
mind the window over the stables, as looks into the garden, 

539 


A Dark Night’s Work 

all covered over wi’ the leaves of the jargonelle pear-tree ? 
That were my room when first I come as stable-boy, and, 
tho’ Mr. Osbaldistone would fain give me a warmer one, I 
allays tell him I like th’ old place best. And by times I’ve 
getten up five or six times a-night, to make sure as there 
was no one at work under the tree.” 

Ellinor shivered a little. He saw it, and restrained 
himself in the rehef he was receiving from imparting his 
superstitious fancies. 

“ You see, missy, I could never rest a-nights, if I didn’t 
feel as if I kept the secret in my hand, and held it tight day 
and night, so as I could open my hand at any minute and 
see as it was there. No ! my own little missy will let me 
come and see her now and again, and I know as I can allays 
ask her for what I want ; and, if it please God to lay me by, 
I shall tell her so, and she’ll see as I want for nothing. But 
somehow I could ne’er bear leaving Hamley. You shall 
come and follow me to my grave when my time comes.” 

“ Don’t talk so, please, Dixon,” said she. 

“ Nay, it’ll be a mercy when I can lay me down and 
sleep in peace : though I sometimes fear as peace will not 
come to me even there.” He was going out of the room, 
and was now more talking to himself than to her. “ They 
say blood will out ; and, if it weren’t for her part in it, I could 
wish for a clean breast before I die.” 

She did not hear the latter part of this mumbled sentence. 
She was looking at a letter just brought in and requiring an 
immediate answer. It was from Mr. Brown. Notes from 
him were of daily occurrence, but this contained an open 
letter, the writing of which was strangely familiar to her — 
it did not need the signature “ Ealph Corbet,” to tell her 
whom the letter came from. For some moments she could 
not read the words. They expressed a simple enough re- 
quest, and were addressed to the auctioneer who was to 
dispose of the rather valuable library of the late Mr. Ness, 
and whose name had been advertised in connection with the 
sale, in the Athenceum, and other similar papers. To him 

540 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Mr. Corbet wrote, saying that he should be unable to be 
present when the books were sold, but that he wished to be 
allowed to buy in, at any price decided upon, a certain rare 
folio edition of Virgil, bound in parchment, and with notes 
in Italian. The book was fully described. Though no Latin 
scholar, Ellinor knew the book well — remembered its look 
from old times, and could instantly have laid her hand upon 
it. The auctioneer had sent the request on to his employer, 
Mr. Brown. That gentleman applied to Ellinor for her 
consent. She saw that the fact of the intended sale must 
be all that Mr. Corbet was aware of, and that he could not 
know to whom the books belonged. She chose out the 
book, and wrapped and tied it up with trembling hands. He 
might be the person to untie the knot. It was strangely 
familiar to her love, after so many years, to be brought into 
thus much contact with him. She wrote a short note to 
Mr. Brown, in which she requested him to say, as though 
from himself, and without any mention of her name, that 
he, as executor, requested Mr. Corbet’s acceptance of the 
Virgil, as a remembrance of his former friend and tutor. 
Then she rang the beU, and gave the letter and parcel to 
the servant. 

Again alone, and Mr. Corbet’s open letter on the table ! 
She took it up and looked at it, till the letters dazzled crimson 
on the white paper. Her life rolled backwards, and she was 
a girl again. At last she roused herself ; but instead of 
destroying the note — it was long years since all her love- 
letters from him had been returned to the writer — she un- 
locked her little writing-case again, and placed this letter 
carefully down at the bottom, among the dead rose-leaves 
which embalmed the note from her father, found after his 
death under his pillow, the little golden curl of her sister’s, 
the half-finished sewing of her mother’s. 

The shabby writing-case itself was given her by her father 
long ago, and had since been taken with her everywhere. 
To be sure, her changes of place had been but few ; but, if 
she had gone to Nova Zembla, the sight of that little leather 

541 


A Dark Night’s Work 

box on awaking from her first sleep, would have given her a 
sense of home. She locked the case up again, and felt all 
the richer for that morning. 

A day or two afterwards she left Hamley. Before she 
went she compelled herself to go round the gardens and 
grounds of Ford Bank. She had made Mrs. Osbaldistone 
understand that it would be painful for her to re-enter the 
house ; but Mr. Osbaldistone accompanied her in her walk. 

You see how literally we have obeyed the clause in the 
lease which ties us out from any alterations,” said he, smiling. 
“We are living in a tangled thicket of wood. I must confess 
that I should have liked to cut down a good deal ; but we do 
not do even the requisite thinnings without making the proper 
apphcation for leave to Mr. Johnson. In fact, your old friend 
Dixon is jealous of every pea-stick the gardener cuts. I 
never met with so faithful a fellow. A good enough servant, 
too, in his way ; but somewhat too old-fashioned for my wife 
and daughters, who complain of his being surly now and 
then.” 

“ You are not thinking of parting with him ? ” said 
EUinor, jealous for Dixon. 

“ Oh, no ; he and I are capital friends. And I believe 
Mrs. Osbaldistone herself would never consent to his leaving 
us. But some ladies, you know, like a little more sub- 
serviency in manner than our friend Dixon can boast.” 

EUinor made no reply. They were entering the painted 
flower-garden, hiding the ghastly memory. She could not 
speak. She felt as if, with all her striving, she could not 
move — just as one does in a nightmare — but she was past 
the place even as this terror came to its acme ; and, when 
she came to herself, Mr. Osbaldistone was stUl blandly 
talking, and saying — 

“It is like a reward for our obedience to your wishes, 
Miss Wilkins; for, if the projected railway passes through the 
ash-field yonder, we should have been perpetuaUy troubled 
with the sight of the trains ; indeed, the sound would have 
been much more distinct than it will be now coming through 

542 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the interlacing branches. Then you will not go in, Miss 
Wilkins ? Mrs. Osbaldistone desired me to say how happy 
Ah I I can understand such feelings Certainly, cer- 
tainly ; it is so much the shortest way to the town, that we 
elder ones always go through the stable-yard; for young 
people, it is perhaps not quite so desirable. Ha ! Dixon,” 
he continued, “ on the watch for the ‘ Miss EUinor ’ we so 
often hear of ! This old man,” he continued to Ellinor, “ is 
never satisfied with the seat of our young ladies, always 
comparing their way of riding with that of a certain 
missy ” 

“ I cannot help it, sir ; they’ve quite a different style 
of hand, and sit all lumpish-like. Now, Miss Ellinor, 
there ” 

“ Hush, Dixon,” she said, suddenly aware of why the old 
servant was not popular with his mistress. “ I suppose I 
may be allowed to ask for Dixon’s company for an hour or 
so ; we have something to do together, before we leave.” 

The consent given, the two walked away, as by previous 
appointment, to Hamley churchyard, where he was to point 
out to her the exact spot where he wished to be buried. 
Tramphng over the long, rank grass, but avoiding passing 
directly over any of the thickly- strewn graves, he made 
straight for one spot — a little space of unoccupied ground 
close by, where Molly, the pretty scullery-maid, lay — 

Sacred to the Memory of 
Mary Greaves, 

Born 1797. Died 1818. 

“ We part to meet again.” 

“ I put this stone up over her with my first savings,” said 
he, looking at it ; and then, pulling out his knife, he began 
to clean out the letters. “ I said then as I would lie by her. 
And it’ll be a comfort to think you’ll see me laid here. I 
trust no one’ll be so crabbed as to take a fancy to this ’ere 
spot of ground.” 

Ellinor grasped eagerly at the only pleasure which her 
543 


A Dark Night’s Work 

money enabled her to give to the old man ; and promised 
him that she would take care and buy the right to that par- 
ticular piece of ground. This was evidently a gratification 
Dixon had frequently yearned after ; he kept saying, “ I’m 
greatly obleeged to ye, Miss Ellinor. I may say I’m truly 
obleeged.” And when he saw them off by the coach the 
next day, his last words were, “ I cannot justly say how 
greatly I’m ohleeged to you for that matter of the churchyard." 
It was a much more easy affair to give Miss Monro some 
additional comforts; she was as cheerful as ever; still 
working away at her languages in any spare time, but 
confessing that she was tired of the perpetual teaching in 
which her life had been spent during the last thirty years. 
Ellinor was now enabled to set her at liberty from this, and 
she accepted the kindness from her former pupil with as 
much simple gratitude as that with which a mother receives 
a favour from a child. “ If Ellinor were but married to 
Canon Livingstone, I should be happier than I have ever 
been since my father died,” she used to say to herself in the 
solitude of her bed-chamber ; for talking aloud had become 
her wont in the early years of her isolated life as a governess. 
“ And yet," she went on, “ I don’t know what I should do 
without her ; it is lucky for me that things are not in my 
hands, for a pretty mess I should make of them, one way or 
another. Dear ! how old Mrs. Cadogan used to hate that 
word ‘ mess,’ and correct her granddaughters for using it 
right before my face, when I knew I had said it myself only 
the moment before ! Well ! those days are all over now. 
God be thanked ! " 

In spite of being glad that “ things were not in her hands," 
Miss Monro tried to take affairs into her charge by doing all 
she could towards persuading Ellinor to allow her to invite 
the canon to their “ little sociable teas.” The most provoking 
part was, that she was sure he would have come if he had 
been asked ; but she could never get leave to do so. “ Of course 
no man could go on for ever and ever without encourage- 
ment,” as she confided to herself in a plaintive tone of voice ; 

544 


A Dark Night’s Work 

and by-and-by many people were led to suppose that the 
bachelor canon was paying attention to Miss Forbes, the 
eldest daughter of the family to which the delicate Jeanie be- 
longed. It was, perhaps, with the Forbeses that both Miss 
Monro and Ellinor were the most intimate of all the families 
in East Chester. Mrs. Forbes was a widow lady of good 
means, with a large family of pretty, delicate daughters. 

She herself belonged to one of the great houses in shire, 

but had married into Scotland; so, after her husband’s 
death, it was the most natural thing in the world that she 
should settle in East Chester ; and one after another of her 
daughters had become, first Miss Monro’s pupil, and after- 
wards her friend. Mrs. Forbes herself had always been 
strongly attracted by Ellinor; but it was long before she 
could conquer the timid reserve by which Miss Wilkins 
was hedged round. It was Miss Monro, who was herself in- 
capable of jealousy, who persevered in praising them to one 
another, and in bringing them together ; and now Ellinor 
was as intimate and familiar in Mrs. Forbes’s household as 
she ever could be with any family not her own. 

Mrs. Forbes was considered to be a little fanciful as to 
illness; but it was no wonder, remembering how many 
sisters she had lost by consumption. Miss Monro had often 
grumbled at the way in which her pupils were made irregular 
for very trifling causes. But no one so alarmed as she, 
when, in the autumn succeeding Mr. Ness’s death, Mrs. 
Forbes remarked to her on Ellinor’s increased delicacy of 
appearance, and shortness of breathing. From that time 
forwards, she worried Ellinor (if any one so sweet and 
patient could ever have been worried) with respirators and 
precautions. Ellinor submitted to all her friend’s wishes 
and cares, sooner than make her anxious, and remained a 
prisoner in the house through the whole of November. Then 
Miss Monro’s anxiety took another turn. Ellinor’s appetite 
and spirits failed her— not at all an unnatural consequence 
of so many weeks’ confinement to the house. A plan was 
started, quite suddenly, one morning in December, that met 

545 2 N 


A Dark Night’s Work 

with approval from every one but Ellinor, who was, however, 
by this time too languid to make much resistance. 

Mrs. Forbes and her daughters were going to Eome for 
three or four months, so as to avoid the trying east winds of 
spring ; why should not Miss Wilkins go with them ? They 
urged it, and Miss Monro urged it, though with a little 
private sinking of the heart, at the idea of the long separation 
from one who was almost like a child to her. Elhnor was, 
as it were, lifted off her feet and borne away by the 
unanimous opinion of others — the doctor included — who de- 
cided that such a step was highly desirable, if not absolutely 
necessary. She knew that she had only a life-interest both 
in her father’s property and in that bequeathed to her by 
Mr. Ness. Hitherto she had not felt much troubled by this, 
as she had supposed that in the natural course of events 
she should survive Miss Monro and Dixon, both of whom 
she looked upon as dependent upon her. All she had to 
bequeath to the two was the small savings, which would 
not nearly suffice for both purposes, especially considering 
that Miss Monro had given up her teaching, and that 
both she and Dixon were passing into years. 

Before Ellinor left England, she had made every ar- 
rangement for the contingency of her death abroad that 
Mr. Johnson could suggest. She had written and sent 
a long letter to Dixon; and a shorter one was left in 
charge of Canon Livingstone (she dared not hint at the 
possibility of her dying to Miss Monro), to be sent to the 
old man; 

As they drove out of the King’s Cross station, they passed 
a gentleman’s carriage entering. Ellinor saw a bright, hand- 
some lady and a nurse and baby inside, and a gentleman 
sitting by them whose face she could never forget. It was 
Mr. Corbet taking his wife and child to the railway. They 
were going on a Christmas visit to East Chester deanery. 
He had been leaning back, not noticing the passers-by, not 
attending to the other inmates of the carriage, probably 
absorbed in the consideration of some law- case. Such were 

546 


A Dark Night’s Work 

the casual glimpses Ellinor had of one with whose life she 
had once thought herself bound up. 

Who so proud as Miss Monro when a foreign letter came ? 
Her correspondent was not particularly graphic in her 
descriptions, nor were there any adventures to be described, 
nor was the habit of mind of Ellinor such as to make her 
clear and definite in her own impressions of what she saw ; 
and her natural reserve kept her from being fluent in com- 
municating them even to Miss Monro. But that lady would 
ha ve been pleased to read aloud these letters to the assembled 
dean and canons, and would not have been surprised, if they 
had invited her to the chapter-house for that purpose. To 
her circle of untravelled ladies, ignorant of Murray, but 
laudably desirous of information, aU Ellinor’s historical 
reminiscences and rather formal details were really interest- 
ing. There was no railroad in those days between Lyons 
and Marseilles, so their progress was slow, and the passage 
of letters to and fro, when they had arrived in Eome, long 
and uncertain. But all seemed going on well. Ellinor 
spoke of herself as in better health ; and Canon Livingstone 
(between whom and Miss Monro great intimacy had sprung 
up since Ellinor had gone away, and Miss Monro could ask 
him to tea) confirmed this report of Miss Wilkins’s health 
from a letter which he had received from Mrs. Forbes. 
Curiosity about that letter was Miss Monro’s torment. 
What could they have had to write to each other about? 
It was a very odd proceeding; although the Livingstones 
and Forbeses were distantly related, after the manner of 
Scotland. Could it have been that he had offered to 
Euphemia, after all, and that her mother had answered ; or, 
possibly, there was a letter from Effie herself, enclosed. It 
was a pity for Miss Monro’s peace of mind that she did not 
ask him straight away. She would then have learnt what 
Canon Livingstone had no thought of concealing, that Mrs. 
Forbes had written solely to give him some fuller directions 
about certain charities than she had had time to think about 
in the hurry of starting. As it was, and when, a little later 

547 


A Dark Night’s Work 

on, she heard him speak of the possibility of his going him- 
self to Eome, as soon as his term of residence was over, in 
time for the Carnival, she gave up her fond project in despair, 
and felt very much like a child whose house of bricks had 
been knocked down by the unlucky waft of some passing 
petticoat. 

Meanwhile, the entire change of scene brought on the 
exquisite refreshment of entire change of thought. Ellinor 
had not been able so completely to forget her past life for 
many years ; it was like a renewing of her youth, cut so 
suddenly short by the shears of Fate. Ever since that 
night, she had had to rouse herself on awakening in the 
morning into a full comprehension of the great cause she 
had for much fear and heavy grief. Now, when she 
wakened in her little room, fourth piano, No. 36, Babuino, 
she saw the strange, pretty things around her, and her mind 
went off into pleasant wonder and conjecture, happy recol- 
lections of the day before, and pleasant anticipations of the 
day to come. Latent in Elhnor was her father’s artistic 
temperament ; everything new and strange was a picture 
and a delight ; the merest group in the street, a Eoman 
facchino, with his cloak draped over his shoulder, a girl 
going to market or carrying her pitcher back from the 
fountain, everything and every person that presented it or 
himself to her senses, gave them a delicious shock, as if it 
were something strangely familiar from Pinelli, but unseen 
by her mortal eyes before. She forgot her despondency, 
her ill-health disappeared as if by magic ; Mrs. Forbes and 
her daughters, who had taken the pensive, drooping invalid 
with them as a companion out of kindness of heart, found 
themselves amply rewarded by the sight of her amended 
health, and her keen enjoyment of everything, and the half- 
quaint, half-naive expressions of her pleasure. 

So March came round; Lent was late that year. The 
great nosegays of violets and camellias were for sale at the 
corner of the Condotti, and the revellers had no difficulty in 
procuring much rarer flowers for the belles of the Corso. 

548 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The embassies had their balconies; the attaches of the 
Russian Embassy threw their light and lovely presents at 
every pretty girl, or suspicion of a pretty girl, who passed 
slowly in her carriage, covered over with her white domino, 
and holding her wire mask as a protection to her face from 
the showers of lime confetti, which otherwise would have 
been enough to blind her ; Mrs. Forbes had her own hired 
balcony, as became a wealthy and respectable Englishwoman. 
The girls had a great basket, full of bouquets with which to 
pelt their friends in the crowd below ; a store of moccoletti 
lay piled on the table behind, for it was the last day of 
Carnival, and as soon as dusk came on the tapers were to 
be lighted, to be as quickly extinguished by every means in 
every one’s power. The crowd below was at its wildest 
pitch ; the rows of stately contadini alone sitting immovable 
as their possible ancestors, the senators who received Bren- 
nus and his Gauls. Masks and white dominoes, foreign 
gentlemen, and the riff-raff of the city, slow-driving carriages, 
showers of flowers, most of them faded by this time, every 
one shoutii^g and struggling at that wild pitch of excitement 
which may so soon turn into fury. The Forbes girls had 
given place at the window to their mother and Ellinor, who 
were gazing, half-amused, half-terrified, at the mad parti- 
coloured movement below ; when a familiar face looked up, 
smiling a recognition ; and “ How shall I get to you ? ” was 
asked, in English, by the well-known voice of Canon Living- 
stone. They saw him disappear under the balcony on which 
they were standing, but it was some time before he made 
his appearance in their room. And when he did, he was 
almost overpowered with greetings ; so glad were they to see 
an East Chester face. 

“ When did you come ? Where are you ? What a pity 
you did not come sooner ! It is so long since we have heard 
anything ; do tell us everything ! It is three weeks since 
we have had any letters; those tiresome boats have been 
so irregular because of the weather.” “ How was everybody 
— Miss Monro in particular ? ” Ellinor asks. 

549 


A Dark Night’s Work 

He, quietly smiling, replied to their questions by slow 
degrees. He had only arrived the night before, and had 
been hunting for them all day ; but no one could give him 
any distinct intelligence as to their whereabouts in all the 
noise and confusion of the place, especially as they had their 
only English servant with them, and the canon was not 
strong in his Italian. He was not sorry he had missed all 
but this last day of Carnival, for he was half blinded and 
wholly deafened, as it was. He was at the “ Angleterre ” ; 
he had left East Chester about a week ago ; he had letters 
for all of them, but had not dared to bring them through the 
crowd, for fear of having his pocket picked. Miss Monro 
was very well, but very uneasy at not having heard from 
Ellinor for so long ; the irregularity of the boats must be 
telling both ways, for their English friends were full of 
wonder at not hearing from Eome. And then followed some 
well- deserved abuse of the Eoman post, and some suspicion 
of the carelessness with which Italian servants posted 
English letters. All these answers were satisfactory enough ; 
yet Mrs. Forbes thought she saw a latent un,easiness in 
Canon Livingstone’s manner, and fancied once or twice that 
he hesitated in replying to EUinor’s questions. But there 
was no being quite sure in the increasing darkness, which 
prevented coimtenances from being seen ; nor in the constant 
interruptions and screams which were going on in the small, 
crowded room, as wafting handkerchiefs, puffs of wind, or 
veritable extinguishers, fastened to long sticks, and coming 
from nobody knew where, put out taper after taper as fast 
as they were lighted. 

“ You will come home with us,” said Mrs. Forbes. “ I 
can only offer you cold meat with tea ; our cook is gone out, 
this being a universal festa ; but we cannot part with an old 
friend for any scruples as to the commissariat.” 

“ Thank you. I should have invited myself, if you had 
not been good enough to ask me.” 

When they had all arrived at their apartment in the 
Babuino (Canon Livingstone had gone round to fetch the 

550 


A Dark Night’s Work 

letters with which he was intrusted), Mrs. Forbes was con- 
firmed in her supposition that he had something particular 
and not very pleasant to say to Ellinor, by the rather grave 
and absent manner in which he awaited her return from 
taking off her out-of-door things. He broke off, indeed, in 
his conversation with Mrs. Forbes to go and meet Ellinor, 
and to lead her into the most distant window before he 
delivered her letters. 

“ From what you said in the balcony yonder, I fear you 
have not received your home letters regularly ? ” 

“ No ! ” replied she, startled and trembling, she hardly 
knew why. 

“ No more has Miss Monro heard from you ; nor, I 
believe, has some one else who expected to hear. Your 

man of business^I forget his name ” 

“ My man of business ! Something has gone wrong, 
Mr. Livingstone. Tell me — I want to know. I have been 
expecting it — only tell me ! ” She sat down suddenly, as 
white as ashes. 

“ Dear Miss Wilkins, I’m afraid it is painful enough ; but 
you are fancying it worse than it is. All your friends are 

quite well; but an old servant ” 

“ Well ! ” she said, seeing his hesitation, and leaning 
forwards and gripping his arm. 

“Is taken up on a charge of manslaughter or murder. 
Oh ! Mrs. Forbes, come here ! ” 

For Ellinor had fainted, falling forwards on the arm she 
had held. When she came round, she was lying half un- 
dressed on her bed ; they were giving her tea in spoonfuls. 

“ I must get up,” she moaned. “ I must go home.” 
*‘You must lie still,” said Mrs. Forbes firmly. 

You don’t know. I must go home,” she repeated ; and 
she tried to sit up, but fell back helpless. Then she did not 
speak, but lay and thought. “Will you bring me some 
meat ? ” she whispered. “ And some wine ? ” They 
brought her meat and wine ; she ate, though she was chok- 
ing. “ Now, please bring me my letters, and leave me 

551 


A Dark Night’s Work 

alone ; and after that I should like to speak to Canon 
Livingstone. Don’t let him go, please. I won’t be long — 
half-an-hour, I think. Only let me be alone.” 

There was a hurried, feverish sharpness in her tone that 
made Mrs. Forbes very anxious ; but she judged it best to 
comply with her requests. 

The letters were brought, the lights were arranged so 
that she could read them lying on her bed ; and they left 
her. Then she got up and stood on her feet, dizzy enough, 
her arms clasped at the top of her head, her eyes dilated 
and staring as if looking at some great horror. But after a 
few minutes she sat down suddenly, and began to read. 
Letters were evidently missing. Some had been sent by an 
opportunity that had been delayed on the journey, and had 
not yet arrived in Eome. Others had been despatched by 
the post, but the severe weather, the unusual snow, had, in 
those days, before the railway was made between Lyons and 
Marseilles, put a stop to many a traveller’s plans, and had 
rendered the transmission of the mail extremely uncertain ; 
so, much of that intelligence which Miss Monro had evi- 
dently considered as certain to be known to EUinor was 
entirely matter of conjecture, and could only be guessed at 
from what was told in these letters. One was from Mr. 
Johnson, one from Mr. Brown, one from Miss Monro; of 
course the last -mentioned was the first read. She spoke of 
the shock of the discovery of Mr. Dunster’s body, found in 
the cutting of the new line of railroad from Hamley to the 
nearest railway station ; the body so hastily buried long ago, 
in its clothes, by which it was now recognised — a recognition 
confirmed by one or two more personal and indestructible 
things, such as his watch and seal with his initials ; of the 
shock to every one, the Osbaldistones in particular ; of the 
further discovery of a fleam or horse-lancet, having the name 
of Abraham Dixon engraved on the handle ; how Dixon had 
gone on Mr. Osbaldistone’s business to a horse-fair in Ireland 
some weeks before this, and had had his leg broken by a 
kick from an unruly mare, so that he was barely able to 


A Dark Night’s Work 

move about when the officers of justice went to apprehend 
him in Tralee. 

At this point EUinor cried out loud and shrill. 

“ Oh, Dixon ! Dixon ! and I was away enjoying 
myself.” 

They heard her cry, and came to the door, but it was 
bolted inside. 

“ Please go away,” she said ; “ please go ! I will be 
very quiet ! only, please go ! ” 

She could not bear just then to read any more of Miss 
Monro’s letter; she tore open Mr. Johnson’s — the date was 
a fortnight earlier than Miss Monro’s ; he also expressed his 
wonder at not hearing from her, in reply to his letter of 
January 9 ; but he added, that he thought that her trustees 
had judged rightly ; the handsome sum the railway company 
had offered for the land when their surveyor decided on the 
alteration of the line ; Mr. Osbaldistone, &c. &c. She could 
not read any more ; it was Fate pursuing her. Then she 
took the letter up again and tried to read ; but all that 
reached her understanding was the fact that Mr. Johnson 
had sent his present letter to Miss Monro, thinking that she 
might know of some private opportunity safer than the 
post. Mr. Brown’s was just such a letter as he occasionally 
sent her from time to time; a correspondence that arose 
out of their mutual regard for their dead friend Mr. Ness. 
It, too, had been sent to Miss Monro to direct. EUinor was 
on the point of putting it aside entirely, when the name of 
Corbet caught her eye : “You will be interested to hear that 
the old pupil of our departed friend, who was so anxious to 
obtain the folio Virgil with the Italian notes, is appointed 
the new judge in room of Mr. Justice Jenkin. At least, I 
conclude that Mr. Balph Corbet, Q.C., is the same as the 
Virgil fancier.” 

“ Yes,” said EUinor bitterly ; “ he judged well ; it would 
never have done.” They were the first words of anything 
like reproach which she ever formed in her own mind during 
all these years. She thought for a few moments of the old 

553 


A Dark Night’s Work 

times ; it seemed to steady her brain to think of them. 
Then she took up and finished Miss Monro’s letter. That 
excellent friend had done all which she thought Ellinor 
would have wished without delay. She had written to Mr. 
Johnson, and charged him to do everything he could to 
defend Dixon, and to spare no expense. She was thinking 
of going to the prison in the county-town, to see the old 
man herself ; but Ellinor could perceive that all these 
endeavours and purposes of Miss Monro’s were based on 
love for her own pupil, and a desire to set her mind at ease 
as far as she could, rather than on any idea that Dixon 
himself could be innocent. Ellinor put down the letters, 
and went to the door, then turned back, and locked them 
up in her writing-case with trembling hands ; and after that 
she entered the drawing-room, looking hker to a ghost than 
to a living woman. 

“ Can I speak to you for a minute alone ? ” Her still, 
tuneless voice made the words into a command. Canon 
Livingstone arose and followed her into the little dining- 
room. “ Will you tell me all you know — all you have heard 
about my — you know what ? ” 

“ Miss Monro was my informant — at least at first — it 
was in the Times the day before I left. Miss Monro says it 
could only have been done in a moment of anger if the old 
servant is really guilty ; that he was as steady and good a 
man as she ever knew, and she seems to have a strong 
feeling against Mr. Dunster, as always giving your father 
much unnecessary trouble ; in fact, she hints that his dis- 
appearance at the time was supposed to be the cause of a 
considerable loss of property to Mr. Wilkins.” 

“ No ! ” said Ellinor eagerly, feeling that some justice 
ought to be done to the dead man ; and then she stopped 
short, fearful of saying anything that should betray her full 
knowledge. “ I mean this,” she went on ; “ Mr. Dunster 
was a very disagreeable man personally — and papa — we 
none of us liked him; but he was quite honest — please 
remember that ! ” 


554 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The canon bowed, and said a few acquiescing words. 
He waited for her to speak again. 

“ Miss Monro says she is going to see Dixon in ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Livingstone, I can't bear it ! ” 

He let her alone, looking at her pitifully, as she twisted 
and wrung her hands together, in her endeavour to regain 
the quiet manner she had striven to maintain through the 
interview. She looked up at him with a poor attempt at an 
apologetic smile — 

“It is so terrible to think of that good old man in 
prison ! “ 

“ You do not believe him guilty ! ” said Canon Living- 
stone, in some surprise. “ I am afraid, from all I heard and 
read, there is but little doubt that he did kill the man ; I trust 
in some moment of irritation, with no premeditated malice.” 

Ellinor shook her head. 

“ How soon can I get to England ? ” asked she. “ I 
must start at once.” 

“ Mrs. Forbes sent out while you were lying down. I 
am afraid there is no boat to Marseilles till Thursday, the 
day after to-morrow.” 

“ But I must go sooner ! ” said Ellinor, starting up. “ I 
must go; please help me. He may be tried before I can 
get there ! ” 

“ Alas ! I fear that will be the case, whatever haste you 
make. The trial was to come on at the Hellingford Assizes, 
and that town stands first on the Midland Circuit list. 
To-day is the 27th of February ; the assizes begin on the 
7th of March.” 

“ I will start to-morrow morning early for Civita ; there 
may be a boat there they do not know of here. At any rate, 
I shall be on my way. If he dies, I must die too. Oh I I 
don’t know what I am saying, I am so utterly crushed 
d own 1 It would be such a kindness if you would go away, 
and let no one come to me. I know Mrs. Forbes is so good, 
she will forgive me. I will say good-bye to you all, before I 
go to-morrow morning ; but I must think now.” 

555 


A Dark Night’s Work 

For one moment he stood looking at her, as if he longed 
to comfort her by more words. He thought better of it, 
however, and silently left the room. 

For a long time Ellinor sat still ; now and then taking up 
Miss Monro’s letter, and re-reading the few terrible details. 
Then she bethought her that possibly the canon might have 
brought a copy of the Times, containing the examination of 
Dixon before the magistrates, and she opened the door and 
called to a passing servant to make the inquiry. She was 
quite right in her conjecture ; Dr. Livingstone had had the 
paper in his pocket during his interview with her; but he 
thought the evidence so conclusive, that the perusal of it 
would only be adding to her extreme distress by accelerating 
the conviction of Dixon’s guilt, which he beheved she must 
arrive at sooner or later. 

He had been reading the report over with Mrs. Forbes 
and her daughters, after his return from Ellinor’s room, and 
they were all participating in his opinion upon it, when her 
request for the Times was brought. They had reluctantly 
agreed, saying there did not appear to be a shadow of doubt 
as to the fact of Dixon’s having killed Mr. Dunster, only 
hoping there might prove to be some extenuating circum- 
stances, which Ellinor had probably recollected, and which 
she was desirous of producing on the approaching trial. 


CHAPTEE XIII 

Ellinor, having read the report of Dixon’s examination in 
the newspaper, bathed her eyes and forehead in cold water, 
and tried to still her poor heart’s beating, that she might be 
clear and collected enough to weigh the evidence. 

Every Une of it was condemnatory. One or two witnesses 
spoke of Dixon’s unconcealed dislike of Dunster, a dislike 
which Ellinor knew had been entertained by the old servant 

556 


A Dark Night’s Work 

out of a species of loyalty to his master, as well as from 
personal distaste. The fleam was proved beyond all doubt 
to be Dixon’s ; and a man, who had been stable-boy in Mr. 
Wilkins’s service, swore that on the day when Mr. Dunster 
was missed, and when the whole town was wondering what 
had become of him, a certain colt of Mr. Wilkins’s had 
needed bleeding, and that he had been sent by Dixon to the 
farrier’s for a horse- lancet, an errand which he had remarked 
upon at the time, as he knew that Dixon had a fleam of his 
own. 

Mr. Osbaldistone was examined. He kept interrupting 
himself perpetually, to express his surprise at the fact of so 
steady and well-conducted a man as Dixon being guilty of 
so heinous a crime, and was willing enough to testify to the 
excellent character which he had home during all the many 
years he had been in his (Mr. Osbaldistone’s) service ; but 
he appeared to be quite convinced by the evidence previously 
given of the prisoner’s guilt in the matter, and strengthened 
the case against him materially by stating the circumstance 
of the old man’s dogged unwillingness to have the slightest 
interference by cultivation with that particular piece of 
ground. 

Here Ellinor shuddered. Before her, in that Eoman 
bed-chamber, rose the fatal oblong she knew by heart— a 
little green moss or lichen, and thinly-growing blades of 
grass scarcely covering the caked and undisturbed soil under 
the old tree. Oh, that she had been in England when the 
surveyors of the railway between Ashcombe and Hamley 
had altered their line ! She would have entreated, implored, 
compelled her trustees not to have sold that piece of ground 
for any sum of money whatever. She would have bribed 
the surveyors, done she knew not what — but now it was too 
late ; she would not let her mind wander off to what might 
have been ; she would force herself again to attend to the 
newspaper columns. There was little more : the prisoner 
had been asked if he could say anything to clear himself, 
and properly cautioned not to say anything to incriminate 

557 


A Dark Night’s Work 

himself. The poor old man’s person was described, and his 
evident emotion. “ The prisoner was observed to clutch at 
the rail before him to steady himself, and his colour changed 
so much at this part of the evidence that one of the turnkeys 
offered him a glass of water, which he declined. He is a 
man of a strongly-built frame, and with rather a morose and 
sullen cast of countenance.” 

“ My poor, poor Dixon ! ” said Ellinor, laying down the 
paper for an instant ; and she was near crying, only she had 
resolved to shed no tears till she had finished all, and could 
judge of the chances. There were but a few hues more: 
“ At one time the prisoner seemed to be desirous of alleging 
something in his defence, but he changed his mind, if such 
had been the case, and in reply to Mr. Gordon (the magis- 
trate) he only said, ‘ You’ve made a pretty strong case out 
again’ me, gentlemen, and it seems for to satisfy you ; so I 
think I’ll not disturb your minds by saying anything more.’ 
Accordingly, Dixon now stands committed for trial for 
murder at the next Hellingford Assizes, which commence 
on March the seventh, before Baron Eushton and Mr. 
Justice Corbet.” 

“ Mr. Justice Corbet ! ” The words ran through Ellinor 
as though she had been stabbed with a knife, and by an 
irrepressible movement she stood up rigid. The young 
man, her lover in her youth, the old servant who in those 
days was perpetually about her — the two who had so often 
met in famihar if not friendly relations, now to face each 
other as judge and accused ! She could not tell how much 
Mr. Corbet had conjectured from the partial revelation she 
had made to him of the impending shame that hung over 
her and hers. A day or two ago, she could have remembered 
the exact words she had used in that memorable interview ; 
but now, strive as she would, she could only recall facts, not 
words. After all, the Mr. Justice Corbet might not be 
Ealph. There was one chance in a hundred against the 
identity of the two. 

While she was weighing probabilities in her sick, dizzy 

558 


A Dark Night’s Work 

mind, she heard soft steps outside her bolted door, and low 
voices whispering. It was the bed-time of happy people 
with hearts at ease. Some of the footsteps passed lightly 
on; but there was a gentle rap at Ellinor’s door. She 
pressed her two hot hands hard against her temples for an 
instant, before she went to open the door. There stood Mrs. 
Forbes in her handsome evening-dress, holding a lighted 
lamp in her hand. 

“May I come in, my dear?” she asked. Ellinor’s stiff 
dry lips refused to utter the words of assent which indeed 
did not come readily from her heart. 

“I am so grieved at this sad news which the canon 
brings. I can well understand what a shock it must be to 
you ; we have just been saying it must be as bad for you as 
it would be to us, if our old Donald should turn out to have 
been a hidden murderer all these years that he has lived 
with us ; I really could as soon have suspected Donald as 
that white-haired respectable old man who used to come and 
see you at East Chester.’’ 

Ellinor felt that she must say something. “It is a 
terrible shock — poor old man ! and no friend near him, even 
Mr. Osbaldistone giving evidence against him. Oh, dear, 
dear, why did I ever come to Eome ? ” 

“ Now, my dear, you must not let yourself take an 
exaggerated view of the case. Sad and shocking as it is to 
have been so deceived, it is what happens to many of us, 
though not to so terrible a degree ; and as to your coming to 

Eome having anything to do with it ” 

(Mrs. Forbes almost smiled at the idea, so anxious was 
she to banish the idea of self-reproach from Ellinor’s sensi- 
tive mind ; but Ellinor interrupted her abruptly) — 

“ Mrs. Forbes ! did he — did Canon Livingstone tell you 
that I must leave to-morrow? I must go to England as 
fast as possible, to do what I can for Dixon.” 

“ Yes, he told us you were thinking of it ; and it was 
partly that made me force myself in upon you to-night. I 
think, my love, you are mistaken in feeling as if you were 

559 


A Dark Night’s Work 

called upon to do more than what the canon tells me Miss 
Monro has already done in your name — engaged the best 
legal advice, and spared no expense to give the suspected 
man every chance. What could you do more, even if you 
were on the spot? And it is very possible that the trial 
may have come on before you get home. Then what could 
you do? He would either have been acquitted or con- 
demned ; if the former, he would find public sympathy all in 
his favour ; it always is for the unjustly accused. And if he 
turns out to be guilty, my dear Ellinor, it will be far better 
for you to have all the softening which distance can give to 
such a dreadful termination to the life of a poor man whom 
you have respected so long.” 

But Ellinor spoke again with a kind of irritated deter- 
mination, very foreign to her usual soft docility — 

“ Please, just let me judge for myself this once ! I am 
not ungrateful. God knows I don’t want to vex one who 
has been so kind to me as you have been, dear Mrs. Forbes ; 
but I must go — and every word you say to dissuade me only 
makes me more convinced. I am going to Civita to-morrow. 
I shall be that much on the way. I cannot rest here.” 

Mrs. Forbes looked at her in grave silence. Ellinor 
could not bear the consciousness of that fixed gaze. Yet 
its fixity only arose from Mrs. Forbes’s perplexity as to how 
best to assist Ellinor, whether to restrain her by further 
advice — of which the first dose had proved so useless — or to 
speed her departure. Ellinor broke in on her meditations — 

“ You have always been so kind and good to me — go on 
being so — please, do ! Leave me alone now, dear Mrs. 
Forbes, for I cannot bear talking about it, and help me to 
go to-morrow ; and you do not know how I will pray to God 
to bless you ! ” 

Such an appeal was irresistible. Mrs. Forbes kissed her 
very tenderly, and went to rejoin her daughters, who were 
clustered together in their mother’s bed-room awaiting her 
coming. 

“ Well, mamma, how is she ? What does she say ? ” 

560 


A Dark Night’s Work 

** She is in a very excited state, poor thing ! and has got 
so strong an impression that it is her duty to go back to 
England and do all she can for this wretched old man, that 
I am afraid we must not oppose her. I am afraid that she 
really must go on Thursday.” 

Although Mrs. Forbes secured the services of a travelling- 
maid, Dr. Livingstone insisted on accompanying Ellinor to 
England ; and it would have required more energy than she 
possessed at this time to combat a resolution which both 
words and manner expressed as determined. She would 
much rather have travelled alone with the maid ; she did 
not feel the need of the services he offered ; but she was 
utterly listless and broken down ; all her interest was 
centred in the thought of Dixon and his approaching trial, 
and perplexity as to the mode in which she must do her 
duty. 

They embarked late that evening in the tardy Smta Lucia, 
and Ellinor immediately went to her berth. She was not 
sea-sick; that might possibly have lessened her mental 
sufferings, which all night long tormented her. High- 
perched in an upper berth, she did not like disturbing the 
other occupants of the cabin till daylight appeared. Then 
she descended and dressed, and went on deck; the vessel 
was just passing the rocky coast of Elba, and the sky was 
flushed with rosy light, that made the shadows on the island 
of the most exquisite purple. The sea still heaved with 
yesterday’s storm, but the motion only added to the beauty 
of the sparkles and white foam that dimpled and curled on 
the blue waters. The air was delicious, after the closeness 
of the cabin, and Ellinor only wondered that more people 
were not on deck to enjoy it. One or two stragglers came 
up, time after time, and began pacing the deck. Dr. Living- 
stone came up before very long ; but he seemed to have made 
a rule of not obtruding himself on Ellinor, excepting when he 
could be of some use. After a few words of commonplace 
morning-greeting, he, too, began to walk backwards and 
forwards, while Ellinor sat quietly watching the lovely island 

561 2 o 


A Dark Night’s Work 

receding fast from her view — a beautiful vision never to be 
seen again by her mortal eyes. 

Suddenly, there was a shock and sound all over the 
vessel; her progress was stopped; and a rocking vibration 
was felt everywhere. The quarter-deck was filled with blasts 
of steam, which obscured everything. Sick people came 
rushing up out of their berths in strange undress; the 
steerage passengers — a motley and picturesque set of people, 
in many varieties of gay costume — took refuge on the 
quarter-deck, speaking loudly in all varieties of French and 
Italian patois. Ellinor stood up in silent, wondering dismay. 
Was the Santa Lada going down on the great deep, and 
Dixon unaided in his peril? Dr. Livingstone was by her 
side in a moment. She could scarcely see him for the 
vapour, nor hear him for the roar of the escaping steam. 

“Do not be unnecessarily frightened,” he repeated, a 
little louder. “ Some accident has occurred to the engines. 
I will go and make instant inquiry, and come back to you 
as soon as I can. Trust to me ! ” 

He came back to where she sat trembling. 

“ A part of the engine is broken, through the carelessness 
of these Neapohtan engineers ; they say we must make for 
the nearest port — return to Civita, in fact.” 

“ But Elba is not many miles away,” said Ellinor. “ If 
this steam were but away, you could see it still.” 

“ And, if we were landed there, we might stay on the 
island for many days ; no steamer touches there ; but, if we 
return to Civita, we shall be in time for the Sunday boat.” 

“ Oh, dear, dear ! ” said Ellinor. “ To-day is the second 
— Sunday will be the fourth — the assizes begin on the 
seventh ; how miserably unfortunate ! ” 

“ Yes ! ” he said, “ it is. And these things always appear 
so doubly unfortunate, when they hinder our serving others ! 
But it does not follow that, because the assizes begin at 
Hellingford on the seventh, Dixon’s trial will come on so 
soon. We may still get to Marseilles on Monday evening ; 
on by diligence to Lyons ; it will — it must, I fear, be 

562 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Thursday, at the earliest, before we reach Paris — Thursday, 
the eighth — and I suppose you know of some exculpatory 
evidence that has to be hunted up ? ” 

He added this unwillingly ; for he saw that Ellinor was 
jealous of the secrecy she had hitherto maintained as to her 
reasons for beheving Dixon innocent ; but he could not help 
thinking that she, a gentle, timid woman, unaccustomed to 
action or business, would require some of the assistance 
which he would have been so thankful to give her ; especially 
as this untoward accident would increase the press of time in 
which what was to be done would have to be done. 

But no ! Ellinor scarcely replied to his half-inquiry as to 
her reasons for hastening to England. She yielded to all his 
directions, agreed to his plans, but gave him none of her 
confidence, and he had to submit to this exclusion from 
sympathy in the exact causes of her anxiety. 

Once more in the dreary sola at Civita, with the gaudy 
painted ceiling, the bare dirty floor, the innumerable rattling 
doors and windows ! Ellinor was submissive and patient in 
demeanour, because so sick and despairing at heart. The 
maid was ten times as demonstrative of annoyance and 
disgust : she who had no particular reason for wanting to 
reach England, but who thought it became her dignity to 
make it seem as though she had. 

At length the weary time was over; and again they 
sailed past Elba, and arrived at Marseilles. Now Ellinor 
began to feel how much assistance it was to her to have 
Dr. Livingstone for a “ courier,” as he had several times 
called himself. 


CHAPTEE XIV 

“ Where now ? ” said the canon, as they approached the 
London Bridge station. 

“ To the Great Western,” said she ; “ Hellingford is on 
that line, I see. But, please, now we must part.” 

563 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Then I may not go with you to Hellingford ? At any 
rate, you will allow me to go with you to the railway station, 
and do my last ofi&ce as ‘ courier ’ in getting you your ticket 
and placing you in the carriage.” 

So they went together to the station, and learnt that no 
train was leaving for Hellingford for two hours. There was 
nothing for it but to go to the hotel close by, and pass away 
the time as best they could. 

Ellinor called for the maid’s accounts, and dismissed her. 
Some refreshment that the canon had ordered was eaten, 
and the table cleared. He began walking up and down the 
room, his arms folded, his eyes cast down. Every now and 
then, he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. When that 
showed that it only wanted a quarter of an hour to the time 
appointed for the train to start, he came up to Ellinor, who 
sat leaning her head upon her hand, her hand resting on the 
table. 

“ Miss Wilkins,” he began — and there was something 
peculiar in his tone which startled Ellinor — “ I am sure you 
will not scruple to apply to me if in any possible way I can 
help you in this sad trouble of yours ? ” 

“ No, indeed I won’t ! ” said Ellinor gratefully, and putting 
out her hand as a token. He took it, and held it ; she went 
on, a little more hastily than before : “ You know you were 
so good as to say you would go at once and see Miss Monro, 
and tell her all you know, and that I will write to her as 
soon as I can.” 

“ May I not ask for one line ? ” he continued, still holding 
her hand. 

“ Certainly : so kind a friend as you shall hear all I can 
tell ; that is, all I am at liberty to tell.” 

“ ‘ A friend ’ ! Yes, I am a friend ; and I will not urge 
any other claim just now. Perhaps ” 

Ellinor could not affect to misunderstand him. His 
manner implied even more than his words. 

“ No ! ” she said eagerly. “ We are friends. That is it. 
I think we shall always be friends, though I will tell you 

564 


A Dark Night’s Work 

now — something — this much — it is a sad secret. God help 
me ! lam as guilty as poor Dixon, if, indeed, he is guilty — 
but he is innocent — indeed he is I ” 

“ If he is no more guilty than you, I am sure he is ! Let 
me be more than your friend, Ellinor — let me know all, and 
help you all that I can, with the right of an affianced 
husband ! ” 

“ No, no ! ” said she, frightened both at what she had 
revealed and by his eager, warm, imploring manner. “ That 
can never be. You do not know the disgrace that may be 
hanging over me.” 

“ If that is all,” said he, “ I take my risk — if that is all — 
if you only fear that I may shrink from sharing any peril 
you may be exposed to.” 

“It is not peril — it is shame and obloquy ” she 

murmured. 

“ Well ! shame and obloquy. Perhaps, if I knew all, I 
could shield you from it.” 

“ Don’t, pray, speak any more about it now ; if you do, 
I must say ‘ No.’ ” 

She did not perceive the implied encouragement in these 
words ; but he did, and they sufficed to make him patient. 

The time was up, and he could only render her his last 
services as “ courier ” ; and none other but the necessary 
words at starting passed between them. 

But he went away from the station with a cheerful heart ; 
while she, sitting alone and quiet, and at last approaching 
near to the place where so much was to be decided, felt 
sadder and sadder, heavier and heavier. 

All the intelligence she had gained since she had seen 
the Galignani in Paris, had been from the waiter at the 
Great Western Hotel, who, after returning from a vain search 
for an unoccupied TimeSf had volunteered the information 
that there was an unusual demand for the paper because of 
Hellingford Assizes, and the trial there for murder that was 
going on. 

There was no electric telegraph in those days ; at every 

565 


A Dark Night’s Work 

station Ellinor put her head out, and inquired if the murder 
trial at Hellingford was ended. Some porters told her one 
thing, some another, in their hurry ; she felt that she could 
not rely on them. 

“Drive to Mr. Johnson’s in the High Street — quick, 
quick ! I will give you half-a-crown if you will go quick.” 

For, indeed, her endurance, her patience, was strained 
almost to snapping ; yet at Hellingford station, where doubt- 
less they could have told her the truth, she dared not ask 
the question. It was past eight o’clock at night. In many 
houses in the little country-town there were unusual lights 
and sounds. The inhabitants were showing their hospitality 
to such of the strangers brought by the assizes as were 
lingering there, now that the business which had drawn them 
was over. The judges had left the town that afternoon, to 
wind up the circuit by the short list of a neighbouring county- 
town. 

Mr. Johnson was entertaining a dinner-party of attorneys, 
when he was summoned from dessert by the announcement 
of a “lady who wanted to speak to him immediate and 
particular.” 

He went into his study in not the best of tempers. There 
he found his cUent, Miss Wilkins, white and ghastly, 
standing by the fireplace, with her eyes fixed on the 
door. 

“ It is you. Miss Wilkins ! I am very glad ” 

“ Dixon ! ” said she. It was all she could utter. 

Mr. Johnson shook his head. 

“ Ah ! that’s a sad piece of business, and I’m afraid it 
has shortened your visit to Eome.” 

“ Is he ” 

“ Ay, I’m afraid there’s no doubt of his guilt. At any 
rate, the jury found him guilty, and ” 

“ And ! ” she repeated quickly, sitting down, the better 
to hear the words that she knew were coming — 

“ He is condemned to death.” 

“ When?” 


566 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ The Saturday but one after the judges left the town, I 
suppose — it’s the usual time.” 

“ Who tried him ? ” 

“ Judge Corbet ; and, for a new judge, I must say I never 
knew one who got through his business so well. It was 
really as much as I could stand, to hear him condemning 
the prisoner to death. Dixon was undoubtedly guilty, and 
he was as stubborn as could be — a sullen old fellow who 
would let no one help him through. I’m sure I did my best 
for him at Miss Monro’s desire and for your sake. But he 
would furnish me with no particulars, help us to no evidence. 
I had the hardest work to keep him from confessing all 
before witnesses, who would have been bound to repeat it 
as evidence against him. Indeed, I never thought he would 
have pleaded ‘ Not Guilty.’ I think it was only with a 
desire to justify himself in the eyes of some old Hamley 
acquaintances. Good God, Miss Wilkins ! What’s the 
matter ? You’re not fainting I ” He rang the bell till the 
rope remained in his hands. “ Here, Esther ! Jerry I Who- 
ever you are, come quick ! Miss Wilkins has fainted ! 
Water ! Wine ! Tell Mrs. Johnson to come here directly ! ” 

Mrs. Johnson, a kind, motherly woman, who had been 
excluded from the “ gentlemen’s dinner-party,” and had 
devoted her time to superintending the dinner her husband 
had ordered, came in answer to his call for assistance, and 
found Ellinor lying back in her chair white and senseless. 

“ Bessy, Miss Wilkins has fainted ; she has had a long 
journey, and is in a fidget about Dixon, the old fellow who 
was sentenced to be hung for that murder, you know. I 
can’t stop here, I must go back to those men. You bring 
her round, and see her to bed ! The blue room is empty 
since Homer left. She must stop here, and I’ll see her in 
the morning. Take care of her, and keep her mind as easy 
as you can, will you ; for she can do no good by fidgeting.” 

And, knowing that he left Ellinor in good hands, and 
with plenty of assistance about her, he returned to his 
friends. 

567 


A Dark Night’s Work 

EUinor came to herself before long. 

“ It was very foolish of me, but I could not help it,” said 
she apologetically. 

“ No ; to be sure not, dear. Here, drink this ; it is some 
of Mr. Johnson’s best port wine that he has sent out on 
purpose for you. Or would you rather have some white 
soup — or what ? We’ve had everything you could think of 
for dinner, and you’ve only to ask and have. And then you 
must go to bed, my dear — Mr. Johnson says you must ; and 
there’s a well-aired room, for Mr. Homer only left us this 
morning.” 

“ I must see Mr. Johnson again, please.” 

“ But indeed you must not. You must not worry your 
poor head with business now ; and Johnson would only talk 
to you on business. No ; go to bed, and sleep soundly, and 
then you’ll get up quite bright and strong, and fit to talk 
about business.” 

“I cannot sleep — I cannot rest till I have asked Mr. 
Johnson one or two more questions; indeed I cannot,” 
pleaded Ellinor. 

Mrs. Johnson knew that her husband’s orders on such 
occasions were peremptory, and that she should come in 
for a good conjugal scolding, if, after what he had said, she 
ventured to send for him again. Yet Ellinor looked so 
entreating and wistful that she could hardly find in her heart 
to refuse her. A bright thought struck her. 

** Here is pen and paper, my dear. Could you not write 
the questions you wanted to ask? and he’ll just jot down 
the answers upon the same piece of paper. I’ll send it in by 
Jerry, He has got friends to dinner with him, you see.” 

Ellinor yielded. She sat, resting her weary head on her 
hand, and wondering what were the questions which would 
have come so readily to her tongue, could she have been 
face to face with him. As it was, she only wrote this — 

“How early can I see you to-morrow morning? Will 
you take all the necessary steps for my going to Dixon as 
soon as possible ? Could I be admitted to him to-night ? ” 

568 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The pencilled answers were — 

“ Eight o’clock. Yes. No.” 

“ I suppose he knows best,” said Ellinor, sighing, as she 
read the last word. “ But it seems wicked in me to be going 
to bed — and he so near, in prison.” 

When she rose up and stood, she felt the former dizziness 
return; and that reconciled her to seeking rest before she 
entered upon the duties which were becoming clearer before 
her, now that she knew all and was on the scene of action. 
Mrs. Johnson brought her white- wine whey instead of the 
tea she had asked for ; and perhaps it was owing to this that 
she slept so soundly. 


CHAPTER XV 

When Ellinor awoke, the clear light of dawn was fully in the 
room. She could not remember where she was; for so 
many mornings she had wakened up in strange places, that 
it took her several minutes before she could make out the 
geographical whereabouts of the heavy blue moreen curtains, 
the print of the lord-lieutenant of the county on the wall, 
and all the handsome ponderous mahogany furniture that 
stuffed up the room. As soon as full memory came into her 
mind, she started up ; nor did she go to bed again, although 
she saw by her watch on the dressing-table that it was not 
yet six o’clock. She dressed herself with the dainty com- 
pleteness so habitual to her that it had become an uncon- 
scious habit, and then — the instinct was irrepressible — she 
put on her bonnet and shawl, and went down, past the 
servant on her knees cleaning the doorstep, out into the 
fresh open air; and so she found her way down the High 
Street to Hellingford Castle, the building in which the courts 
of assize were held — the prison in which Dixon lay con- 
demned to die. She almost knew she could not see him ; 

569 


A Dark Night’s Work 

yet it seemed like some amends to her conscience for having 
slept through so many hours of the night, if she made the 
attempt. She went up to the porter’s lodge, and asked the 
little girl sweeping out the place if she might see Abraham 
Dixon. The child stared at her, and ran into the house, 
bringing out her father, a great, burly man, who had not 
yet donned either coat or waistcoat, and who, consequently, 
felt the morning air rather nipping. To him Ellinor repeated 
her question. 

“ Him as is to be hung come Saturday se’nnight ? Why, 
ma’am, I’ve nought to do with it. You may go to the 
governor’s house and try; but, if you’ll excuse me, you’ll 
have your walk for your pains. Them in the condemned 
cells is never seen by nobody without the sherilTs order. 
You may go up to the governor’s house and welcome ; but 
they’ll only tell you the same. Yon’s the governor’s house.” 

Ellinor fully believed the man ; and yet she went on to 
the house indicated, as if she still hoped that in her case 
there might be some exception to the rule, which she now 
remembered to have heard of before, in days when such a 
possible desire as to see a condemned prisoner was treated 
by her as a wish that some people might have, did have — 
people as far removed from her circle of circumstances as the 
inhabitants of the moon. Of course she met with the same 
reply, a little more abruptly given, as if every man was from 
his birth bound to know such an obvious regulation. 

She went out past the porter, now fully clothed. He was 
sorry for her disappointment, but could not help saying, with 
a slight tone of exultation, “ Well, you see I was right, 
ma’am ! ” 

She walked as nearly round the castle as ever she could, 
looking up at the few high-barred windows she could see, 
and wondering in what part of the building Dixon was 
confined. Then she went into the adjoining church-yard, 
and, sitting down upon a tombstone, she gazed idly at the 
view spread below her — a view which was considered as 
the lion of the place, to be shown to all strangers by the 

570 


A Dark Night’s Work 

inhabitants of Hellingford. Ellinor did not see it, however ; 
she only saw the blackness of that fatal night, the hurried 
work — the lanterns glancing to and fro. She only heard the 
hard breathing of those who were engaged upon unwonted 
labour ; the few hoarse muttered words ; the swaying of the 
branches to and fro. All at once, the church-clock above her 
struck eight, and then pealed out for distant labourers to 
cease their work for a time. Such was the old custom of the 
place. Ellinor rose up, and made her way back to Mr. John- 
son’s house in High Street. The room felt close and confined 
in which she awaited her interview with Mr. Johnson, who 
had sent down an apology for having overslept himself, and 
at last made his appearance in a hurried half-awakened state, 
in consequence of his late hospitality of the night before. 

“ I am so sorry I gave you all so much trouble last night,” 
said Ellinor apologetically. “ I was over- tired, and much 
shocked by the news I heard.” 

“ No trouble, no trouble, I am sure. Neither Mrs. 
Johnson nor I felt it in the least a trouble. Many ladies, I 
know, feel such things very trying, though there are others 
that can stand a judge’s putting on the black cap better than 
most men. I’m sure I saw some as composed as could be 
under Judge Corbet’s speech.” 

“ But about Dixon ? He must not die, Mr. Johnson.” 

“ Well, I don’t know that he will,” said Mr. Johnson, in 
something of the tone of voice he would have used in 
soothing a child. “ Judge Corbet said something about the 
possibility of a pardon. The jury did not recommend him to 
mercy : you see, his looks went so much against him, and 
all the evidence was so strong, and no defence, so to speak, 
for he would not furnish any information on which we could 
base a defence. But the judge did give some hope, to my 
mind ; though there are others that think differently.” 

“ I tell you, Mr. Johnson, he must not die, and he shall 
not. To whom must I go ? ” 

“ Whew ! Have you got additional evidence ? ” with a 
sudden sharp glance of professional inquiry. 

571 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Never mind,” Ellinor answered. “ I beg your 
pardon . . . only tell me into whose hands the power of life 
and death has passed.” 

“ Into the Home Secretary’s — Sir Philip Homes’s; but you 
cannot get access to him on such an errand. It is the judge 
who tried the case that must urge a reprieve — Judge Corbet.” 

“ Judge Corbet ? ” 

“ Yes ; and he was rather inclined to take a merciful 
view of the whole case. I saw it in his charge. He’ll be 
the person for you to see. I suppose you don’t like to give 
me your confidence, or else I could arrange and draw up 
what will have to be said ? ” 

“ No. What I have to say must be spoken to the 
arbiter — to no one else. I am afraid I answered you 
impatiently just now. You must forgive me ; if you knew 
all, I am sure you would.” 

“ Say no more, my dear lady ! We will suppose you have 
some evidence not adduced at the trial. Well ; you must go 
up and see the judge, since you don’t choose to impart it to 
any one, and lay it before him. He will doubtless compare 
it with his notes of the trial, and see how far it agrees with 
them. Of course you must be prepared with some kind of 
proof; for Judge Corbet will have to test your evidence.” 

“It seems strange to think of him as the judge,” said 
Ellinor, almost to herself. 

“ Why, yes. He’s but a young judge. You knew him 
at Hamley, I suppose ? I remember his reading there with 
Mr. Ness.” 

“ Yes, but do not let us talk more about that time. Tell 
me, when can I see Dixon? I have been to the Castle 
already ; but they said I must have a sheriff’s order.” 

“ To be sure. I desired Mrs. Johnson to tell you so last 
night. Old Ormerod was dining here; he is clerk to the 
magistrates, and I told him of your wish. He said he would 
see Sir Henry Croper, and have the order here before ten. 
But all this time Mrs. Johnson is waiting breakfast for us. 
Let me take you into the diningrroom ! ” 

572 


A Dark Night’s Work 

It was very hard work for Ellinor to do her duty as a 
guest, and to allow herself to be interested and talked to on 
local affairs by her host and hostess. But she felt as if she 
had spoken shortly and abruptly to Mr. Johnson in their 
previous conversation, and that she must try and make 
amends for it ; so she attended to all the details about the 
restoration of the church, and the difficulty of getting a good 
music-master for the three little Miss Johnsons, with all her 
usual gentle good-breeding and patience, though no one can 
tell how full her heart and imagination were of the coming 
interview with poor old Dixon. 

By-and-by, Mr. Johnson was called out of the room, to 
see Mr. Ormerod and receive the order of admission from 
him. Ellinor clasped her hands tight together, as she listened 
with apparent composure to Mrs. Johnson’s never-ending 
praise of the Hullah system. But, when Mr. Johnson returned, 
she could not help interrupting her eulogy, and saying — 

“ Then I may go now ? ” 

Yes, the order was there — she might go, and Mr. Johnson 
would accompany her, to see that she met with no difficulty 
or obstacle. 

As they walked thither, he told her that some one — a 
turnkey, or some one — would have to be present at the 
interview; that such was always the rule in the case of 
condemned prisoners; but that, if this third person was 
“obliging,” he would keep out of earshot. Mr. Johnson 
quietly took care to see that the turnkey who accompanied 
Ellinor was “ obliging.” 

The man took her across high- walled courts, along stone 
corridors, and through many locked doors, before they came 
to the condemned cells. 

“ I’ve had three at a time in here,” said he, unlocking the 
final door, “ after Judge Morton had been here. We always 
called him the ‘ Hanging Judge.’ But it’s five years since 
he died, and now there’s never more than one in at a time ; 
though once it was a woman for poisoning her husband. 
Mary Jones was her name.” 

573 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The stone passage out of which the cells opened was 
light, and bare, and scrupulously clean. Over each door 
was a small barred window, and an outer window of the 
same description was placed high up in the cell, which the 
turnkey now opened. 

Old Abraham Dixon was sitting on the side of his bed, 
doing nothing. His head was bent, his frame sunk, and he 
did not seem to care to turn round and see who it was that 
entered. 

EUinor tried to keep down her sobs, while the man went 
up to him and, laying his hand on his shoulder, and lightly 
shaking him, said — 

“ Here’s a friend come to see you, Dixon.” Then, turn- 
ing to EUinor, he added, “ There’s some as takes it in this 
kind o’ stunned way, while others are as restless as a wild 
beast in a cage, after they’re sentenced.” And then he 
withdrew into the passage, leaving the door open, so that 
he could see all that passed, if he chose to look, but osten- 
tatiously keeping his eyes averted, and whistling to himself, 
so that he could not hear what they said to each other. 

Dixon looked up at EUinor, but then let his eyes fall on 
the ground again ; the increasing trembling of his shrunken 
frame was the only sign he gave that he had recognised 
her. 

She sat down by him, and took his large, homy hand in 
hers. She wanted to overcome her inclination to sob 
hysterically before she spoke. She stroked the bony 
shrivelled fingers, on which her hot, scalding tears kept 
dropping. 

“ Dunnot do that,” said he at length, in a hollow voice. 
“ Dunnot take on about it ; it’s best as it is, missy.” 

“ No, Dixon, it’s not best. It shall not be. You know 
it shall not— cannot be.” 

“ I’m rather tired of living. It’s been a great strain and 
labour for me. I think I’d as lief be with God as with men. 
And, you see, I were fond on him ever sin’ he were a little 
lad, and told me what hard times he had at school, he did, 

574 


A Dark Night’s Work 

just as if I were his brother ! I loved him next to Molly 
Greaves. Dear ! and I shall see her again, I reckon, come 
next Saturday week ! They’ll think well on me, up there. I’ll 
be bound ; though 1 cannot say as I’ve done all as I should 
do here below.” 

“ But, Dixon,” said Ellinor, “ you know who did this — 
this ” 

“ Guilty o’ murder,” said he. “ That’s what they called 
it. Murder ! And that it never were, choose who did it.” 

“ My poor, poor father did it. I am going up to London 
this afternoon ; I am going to see the judge, and tell him all.” 

“ Don’t you demean yourself to that feUow, missy I It’s 
him as left you in the lurch as soon as sorrow and shame 
came nigh you.” 

He looked up at her now, for the first time; but she 
went on, as if she had not noticed those wistful, weary eyes. 

“ Yes ! I shall go to him. I know who it is ; and I am 
resolved. After all, he may be better than a stranger, for 
real help ; and I shall never remember any — anything else, 
when I think of you, good faithful friend.” 

“ He looks but a wizened old fellow in his grey wig. I 
should hardly ha’ known him. I gave him a look, as much 
as to say, ‘ I could tell tales o’ you, my lord judge, if I 
chose.’ I don’t know if he heeded me, though. I suppose 
it were for a sign of old acquaintance that he said he’d 
recommend me to mercy. But I’d sooner have death nor 
mercy, by long odds. Yon man out there says mercy means 
Botany Bay. It ’ud be like killing me by inches, that would. 
It would! I’d liefer go straight to heaven, than live on 
among the black folk.” 

He began to shake again : this idea of transportation, 
from its very mysteriousness, was more terrifying to him 
than death. He kept on saying plaintively, “ Missy, you’ll 
never let ’em send me to Botany Bay; I couldn’t stand 
that.” 

** No, no I ” said she. ” You shall come out of this prison, 
and go home with me to East Chester ; I promise you you 

575 


A Dark Night’s Work 

shall. I promise you. I don’t yet quite know how, but 
trust in my promise. Don’t fret about Botany Bay ! If you 
go there, I go too. I am so sure you will not go. And you 
know, if you have done anything against the law in conceal- 
ing that fatal night’s work, I have done it too, and if you are 
to be punished, I wiU be punished too. But I feel sure it 
will be right ; I mean as right as anything can be, with the 
recollection of that time present to us, as it must always be.” 
She almost spoke these last words to herself. They sat on, 
hand in hand, for a few minutes more in silence. 

“I thought you’d come to me. I know’d you were 
far away in foreign parts. But I used to pray to God. 
‘ Dear Lord God ! ’ I used to say, ‘ let me see her again ! ’ I 
told the chaplain as I’d begin to pray for repentance, at after 
I’d done praying that I might see you once again; for it 
just seemed to take all my strength to say those words as 
I’ve named. And I thought as how God knew what was in 
my heart better than I could tell Him ; how I was main and 
sorry for all as I’ve ever done wrong ; I allays were, at after 
it was done ; but I thought as no one could know how bitter- 
keen I wanted to see you.” 

Again they sank into silence. Ellinor felt as if she would 
fain be away and active in procuring his release; but she 
also perceived how precious her presence was to him ; and 
she did not .like to leave him a moment before the time 
allowed her. His voice had changed to a weak, piping old 
man’s quaver, and between the times of his talking he 
seemed to relapse into a dreamy state ; but through it all he 
held her hand tight, as though afraid that she would leave 
him. 

So the hour elapsed, with no more spoken words than 
those above. From time to time, Ellinor’ s tears dropped 
down upon her lap ; she could not restrain them, though she 
scarce knew why she cried just then. 

At length, the turnkey said that the time allowed for the 
interview was ended. Ellinor spoke no word ; but rose, and 
bent down, and kissed the old man’s forehead, saying — 

576 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ I shall come back to-morrow. God keep and comfort 
you ! ” 

So, almost without an articulate word from him in reply — 
he rose up, and stood on his shaking legs, as she bade him 
farewell, putting his hand to his head with the old habitual 
mark of respect — she went her way swiftly out of the prison, 
swiftly back with Mr. Johnson to his house, scarcely patient 
or strong enough in her hurry to explain to him fully all that 
she meant to do. She only asked him a few absolutely 
requisite questions ; and informed him of her intention to 
go straight to London to see Judge Corbet. 

Just before the railway carriage in which she was seated 
started on the journey, she bent forward, and put out her 
hand once more to Mr. Johnson. “ To-morrow I will thank 
you for all,” she said. “ I cannot now.” 

It was about the same time that she had reached Helling- 
ford on the previous night, that she arrived at the Great 
Western station on this evening — past eight o’clock. On 
the way she had remembered and arranged many things ; 
one important question she had omitted to ask Mr. Johnson ; 
but that was easily remedied. She had not inquired where 
she could find Judge Corbet ; if she had, Mr. Johnson could 
probably have given her only his professional address. As 
it was, she asked for a Post-Office Directory at the hotel, 
and looked out for his private dwelling — 128, Hyde Park 
Gardens. 

She rang for a waiter. 

“ Can I send a messenger to Hyde Park Gardens ? ” she 
said, hurrying on to her business, tired and worn-out as she 
was. “It is only to ask if Judge Corbet is at home this 
evening. If he is, I must go and see him.” 

The waiter was a little surprised, and would gladly have 
had her name to authorise the inquiry ; but she could not 
hear to send it ; it would be bad enough that first meeting, 
without the feeling that he, too, had had time to recall all 
the past days. Better to go in upon him unprepared, and 
plunge into the subject. 

2 P 


577 


A Dark Night’s Work 

The waiter returned with the answer, while she still was 
pacing up and down the room restlessly, nerving herself for 
the interview. 

“ The messenger has been to Hyde Park Gardens, ma’am. 
The Judge and Lady Corbet are gone out to dinner.” 

“ Lady Corbet ” ! Of course, Ellinor knew that he was 
married. Had she 'not been present at the wedding in East 
Chester Cathedral ? But, somehow, these recent events had 
so carried her back to old times, that the intimate association 
of the names, “ the Judge and Lady Corbet,” seemed to 
awaken her out of some dream. 

“ Oh, very well,” she said, just as if these thoughts were 
not passing rapidly through her mind. “ Let me be called 
at seven to-morrow morning, and let me have a cab at the 
door for Hyde Park Gardens at eight.” 

And so she went to bed ; but scarcely to sleep. All 
night long she had the scenes of those old times, the happy, 
happy days of her youth, the one terrible night that cut all 
happiness short, present before her. She could almost have 
fancied that she heard the long-silent sounds of her father’s 
step, her father’s way of breathing, the rustle of his news- 
paper as he hastily turned it over, coming through the lapse 
of years and the silence of the night. She knew that she had 
the little writing-case of her girlhood with her, in her box. 
The treasures of the dead that it contained, the morsel of 
dainty sewing, the little sister’s golden curl, the half-finished 
letter to Mr. Corbet, were all there. She took them out, 
and looked at each separately ; looked at them long — long 
and wistfully. “ Will it be of any use to me ? ” she ques- 
tioned of herself, as she was about to put her father’s letter 
back into its receptacle. She read the last words over again, 
once more : “ From my death-bed I adjure you to stand her 
friend; I will beg pardon on my knees for anything.” 

“ I will take it,” thought she. “ I need not bring it out ; 
most likely there will be no need for it, after what I shall 
have to say. All is so altered, so changed between us, as 
utterly as if it never had been, that I think I shall have no 

578 


A Dark Night’s Work 

shame in showing it him, for my own part of it. While, if 
he sees poor papa’s — dear, dear papa’s — suffering humility, 
it may make him think more gently of one who loved him 
once; though they parted in wrath with each other, I’m 
afraid.” 

So she took the letter with her when she drove to Hyde 
Park Gardens. 

Every nerve in her body was in such a high state of 
tension that she could have screamed out at the cabman’s 
boisterous knock at the door. She got out hastily, before 
any one was ready or willing to answer such an untimely 
summons ; paid the man double what he ought to have had ; 
and stood there, sick, trembling, and humble. 


CHAPTEE XVI. AND LAST 

“ Is Judge Corbet at home ? Can I see him ? ” she asked of 
the footman, who at length answered the door. 

He looked at her curiously, and a little familiarly, before 
he repHed — 

“ Why, yes ! He’s pretty sure to be at home at this time 
of day ; but whether he’ll see you is quite another thing.” 

“Would you be so good as to ask him? It is on very 
particular business.” 

“ Can you give me a card ? your name, perhaps, will do, 
if you have not a card. I say, Simmons ” (to a lady’s-maid 
crossing the hall), “ is the judge up yet ? ” 

“ Oh yes ! he’s in his dressing-room this half-hour. My 
lady is coming down directly. It is just breakfast- time.” 

“ Can’t you put it off, and come again a little later ? ” 
said he, turning once more to Ellinor — white Ellinor! 
trembling Elhnor ! 

“ No ! please let me come in. I will wait. I am sure 
Judge Corbet will see me, if you will tell him I am here. 
Miss Wilkins. He will know the name.” 

579 


A Dark Night’s Work 

** Well, then ; will you wait here till I have got breakfast 
in ? ” said the man, letting her into the hall, and pointing to 
the bench there. He took her, from her dress, to be a lady’s- 
maid or governess, or at most a tradesman’s daughter; and, 
besides, he was behind- hand with all his preparations. She 
came in and sat down. 

“You will tell him I am here,” she said faintly. 

“ Oh yes, never fear ; I’ll send up word, though I don’t 
believe he’ll come to you before breakfast.” 

He told a page, who ran upstairs, and, knocking at the 
judge’s door, said that a Miss Jenkins wanted to speak to 
him. 

“ Who ? ” asked the judge from the inside. 

“ Miss Jenkins. She said you would know the name, 
sir.” 

“ Not I. Tell her to wait.” 

So Ellinor waited. Presently down the stairs, with slow 
deliberate dignity, came the handsome Lady Corbet, in her 
rustling silks and ample petticoats, carrying her fine boy, 
and followed by her majestic nurse. She was ill-pleased 
that any one should come and take up her husband’s time 
when he was at home, and supposed to be enjoying domestic 
leisure ; and her imperious, inconsiderate nature did not 
prompt her to any civility towards the gentle creature sitting 
down, weary and heart-sick, in her house. On the contrary, 
she looked her over as she slowly descended, till Ellinor 
shrank abashed from the steady gaze of the large black eyes. 
Then she, her baby and nurse, disappeared into the large 
dining-room, into which all the preparations for breakfast 
had been carried. 

The next person to come down would be the judge. 
Ellinor instinctively put down her veil. She heard his quick, 
decided step ; she had known it well of old. 

He gave one of his sharp, shrewd glances at the person 
sitting in the hall and waiting to speak to him, and his 
practised eye recognised the lady at once, in spite of her 
travel -worn dress. 


580 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ Will you just come into this room ? ” said he, opening 
the door of his study, to the front of the house : the dining- 
room was to the back ; they communicated by folding-doors. 

The astute lawyer placed himself with his back to the 
window ; it was the natural position of the master of the 
apartment ; but it also gave him the advantage of seeing his 
companion’s face in full light. Ellinor lifted her veil ; it had 
only been a dislike to a recognition in the hall which had 
made her put it down. 

J udge Corbet’s countenance changed more than hers ; 
she had been prepared for the interview ; he was not. But 
he usually had the full command of the expression on his 
face. 

“ Ellinor ! Miss Wilkins ! is it you ? ” And he went 
forwards, holding out his hand with cordial greeting, under 
which the embarrassment, if he felt any, was carefully con- 
cealed. She could not speak all at once in the way she 
•wished. 

“ That stupid Henry told me ‘ Jenkins ’ ! I beg your 
pardon. How could they put you down to sit in the hall I 
You must come in and have some breakfast with us ; Lady 
Corbet will be delighted, I’m sure.” His sense of the 
awkwardness of the meeting vnth the woman who was once 
to have been his wife, and of the probable introduction which 
was to follow to the woman who was his actual wife, grew 
upon him, and made him speak a little hurriedly. Ellinor’s 
next words were a wonderful relief ; and her soft, gentle way 
of speaking was like the touch of a cooling balsam. 

“ Thank you, you must excuse me. I am come strictly 
on business ; otherwise I should never have thought of calling 
on you at such an hour. It is about poor Dixon.” 

“ Ah ! I thought as much ! ” said the judge, handing 
her a chair, and sitting down himself. He tried to compose 
his mind to business ; but in spite of his strength of character, 
and his present efforts, the remembrance of old times would 
come back at the sound of her voice. He wondered if he 
was as much changed in appearance as she struck him as 

581 


A Dark Night’s Work 

being in that first look of recognition ; after that first glance 
he rather avoided meeting her eyes. 

“I knew how much you would feel it. Some one at 
Hellingford told me you were abroad — in Eome, I think. 
But you must not distress yourself unnecessarily ; the 
sentence is sure to be commuted to transportation, or some- 
thing equivalent. I was talking to the Home Secretary 
about it only last night. Lapse of time and subsequent 
good character quite preclude any idea of capital punish- 
ment.” All the time that he said this, he had other thoughts 
at the back of his mind — some curiosity, a little regret, a 
touch of remorse, a wonder how the meeting (which, of 
course, would have to be some time) between Lady Corbet 
and EUinor would go off ; but he spoke clearly enough on 
the subject in hand, and no outward sign of distraction 
from it appeared. 

EUinor answered — 

“ I came to tell you, what I suppose may be told to any 
judge, in confidence and full reliance on his secrecy, that 
Abraham Dixon was not the murderer.” She stopped 
short, and choked a little. 

The judge looked sharply at her. 

“ Then you know who was ? ” said he. 

“ Yes,” she replied, with a low, steady voice, looking him 
full in the face, with sad, solemn eyes. 

The truth flashed into his mind. He shaded his face, 
and did not speak for a minute or two. Then he said, not 
looking up, a little hoarsely, “ This, then, was the shame 
you told me of, long ago ? ” 

“ Yes,” said she. 

Both sat quite still ; quite silent for some time. Through 
the silence a sharp, clear voice was heard speaking through 
the folding-doors. 

“ Take the kedgeree down, and tell the cook to keep it 
hot for the judge. It is so tiresome people coming on 
business here, as if the judge had not his proper hours for 
being at chambers.” 


582 


A Dark Night’s Work 

He got up hastily, and went into the dining-room ; 
but he had audibly some difficulty in curbing his wife’s 
irritation. 

When he came back, Ellinor said — 

“ I am afraid I ought not to have come here now.” 

“ Oh ! it’s all nonsense ! ” said he, in a tone of annoyance. 
“ You’ve done quite right.” He seated himself where he 
had been before; and again half-covered his face with his 
hand. 

“ And Dixon knew of this. I believe I must put the fact 
plainly to you — your father was the guilty person ? He 
murdered Dunster ? ” 

“ Yes. If you call it murder. It was done by a blow, in 
the heat of passion. No one can ever tell how Dunster always 
irritated papa,” said Ellinor, in a stupid, heavy way; and 
then she sighed. 

“ How do you know this ? ” There was a kind of tender 
reluctance in the judge ’s voice, as he put all these questions. 
Ellinor had made up her mind beforehand that something 
like them must be asked, and must also be answered ; but 
she spoke like a sleep-walker. 

“ I came into papa’s room just after he had struck Mr. 
Dunster the blow. He was lying insensible, as we thought 
— dead, as he really was.” 

“ What was Dixon’s part in it ? He must have known a 
good deal about it. And the horse-lancet that was found 
with his name upon it ? ” 

‘ ‘ Papa went to wake Dixon, and he brought his fleam — 
I suppose to try and bleed him. I have said enough, have I 
not ? I seem so confused. But I will answer any question 
to make it clear that Dixon is innocent.” 

The judge had been noting all down. He sat still now 
without replying to her. Then he wrote rapidly, referring to 
his previous paper from time to time. In five minutes or so 
he read over the facts which Ellinor had stated, as he had 
now arranged them, in a legal and connected form. He just 
asked her one or two trivial questions as he did so. Then 

583 


A Dark Night’s Work 

he read it aloud to her, and asked her to sign it. She took 
up the pen, and held it, hesitating. 

“ This will never be made public ? ” said she. 

“No; I shall take care that no one but the Home 
Secretary sees it.” 

“ Thank you. I could not help it, now it has come to 
this.” 

“ There are not many men like Dixon,” said the judge, 
almost to himself, as he sealed the paper in an envelope. 

“No,” said Ellinor ; “I never knew any one so faithful.” 

And just at the same moment the reflection on a less 
faithful person that these words might seem to imply struck 
both of them, and each instinctively glanced at the other. 

“ Ellinor ! ” said the judge, after a moment’s pause, “ we 
are friends, I hope ? ” 

“ Yes ; friends,” said she, quietly and sadly. 

He felt a little chagrined at her answer. Why, he could 
hardly tell. To cover any sign of his feehng, he went on 
talking. 

“ Where are you living now ? ” 

“ At East Chester.” 

“ But you come sometimes to town, don’t you ? Let us 
know always — whenever you come ; and Lady Corbet shall 
call on you. Indeed, I wish you’d let me bring her to see 
you to-day?” 

“ Thank you. I am going straight back to Hellingford ; 
at least, as soon as you can get me the pardon for Dixon.” 

He half-smiled at her ignorance. 

“The pardon must be sent to, the sheriff, who holds the 
warrant for his execution. But, of course, you may have 
every assurance that it shaU be sent as soon as possible. It 
is just the same as if he had it now.” 

“ Thank you very much,” said Ellinor, rising. 

“ Pray don’t go without breakfast ! If you would rather 
not see Lady Corbet just now, it shall be sent in to you in 
this room, unless you have already breakfasted.” 

“ No, thank you ; I would rather not. You are very 
5^4 


A Dark Night’s Work 

kind, and I am very glad to have seen you once again. 
There is just one thing more,” said she, colouring a little 
and hesitating. “ This note to you was found under papa’s 
pillow after his death ; some of it refers to past things ; but 
I should be glad if you could think as kindly as you can of 
poor papa — and so — if you will read it ” 

He took it and read it, not without emotion. Then he 
laid it down on his table, and said — 

“ Poor man ! he must have suffered a great deal for that 
night’s work. And you, Ellinor, you have suffered, too.” 

Yes, she had suffered ; and he who spoke had been one 
of the instruments of her suffering, although he seemed for- 
getful of it. She shook her head a little for reply. Then 
she looked up at him — they were both standing at the time — 
and said — 

“ I think I shall be happier now. I always knew it must 
be found out. Once more, good-bye, and thank you. I may 
take this letter, I suppose ? ” said she, casting envious loving 
eyes at her father’s note, lying unregarded on the table. 

“ Oh ! certainly, certainly,” said he ; and then he took 
her hand ; he held it, while he looked into her face. He had 
thought it changed when he had first seen her ; but it was 
now almost the same to him as of yore. The sweet, shy eyes, 
the indicated dimple in the cheek — and something of fever 
had brought a faint pink flush into her usually colourless 
cheeks. Married judge though he was, he was not sure if 
she had not more charms for him still in her sorrow and her 
shabbiness than the handsome stately wife in the next room, 
whose looks had not been of the pleasantest when he left her 
a few minutes before. He sighed a little regretfully, as Ellinor 
went away. He had obtained the position he had struggled 
for, and sacrificed for ; but now he could not help wishing 
that the slaughtered creature laid on the shrine of his ambition 
were alive again. 

The kedgeree was brought up again, smoking hot, but it 
remained untasted by him ; and, though he appeared to be 
reading the Times^ he did not see a word of the distinct type. 

585 


A Dark Night’s Work 

His wife, meanwhile, continued her complaints of the un- 
timely visitor, whose name he did not give to her in its 
corrected form, as he was not anxious that she should have 
it in her power to identify the caller of this morning with a 
possible future acquaintance. 

When Ellinor reached Mr. Johnson’s house in HeUing- 
ford, that afternoon, she found Miss Monro was there, and 
that she had been with much difficulty restrained by Mr. 
Johnson from following her to London. 

Miss Monro fondled and purred inarticulately through 
her tears over her recovered darling, before she could speak 
intelligibly enough to tell her that Canon Livingstone had 
come straight to see her immediately on his return to East 
Chester, and had suggested her journey to Hellingford, in 
order that, she might be of all the comfort she could to 
Ellinor. She did not at first let out that he had accompanied 
her to Hellingford; she was a little afraid of Ellinor’s dis- 
pleasure at his being there ; Ellinor had always objected so 
much to any advance towards intimacy with him that Miss 
Monro had wished to make. But Ellinor was different now. 

“ How white you are, Nelly ! ” said Miss Monro. “ You 
have been travelling too much and too fast, my child.” 

“ My head aches ! ” said Ellinor wearily. “ But I must 
go to the Castle, and tell my poor Dixon that he is reprieved 
— I am so tired ! Will you ask Mr. Johnson to get me leave 
to see him ? He will know all about it.” 

She threw herself down on the bed in the spare-room ; 
the bed with the heavy blue curtains. After an unheeded 
remonstrance. Miss Monro went to do her bidding. But it 
was now late afternoon, and Mr. Johnson said that it would 
be impossible for him to get permission from the sheriff that 
night. 

“ Besides,” said he courteously, “ one scarcely knows 
whether Miss Wilkins may not give the old man false hopes 
— whether she has not been excited to have false hopes 
herself; it might be a cruel kindness to let her see him, 
without more legal certainty as to what his sentence, or 

586 


A Dark Night’s Work ' 

reprieve, is to be. By to-morrow morning, if I have properly 
understood her story, which was a little confused" 

“ She is so dreadfully tired, poor creature," put in Miss 
Monro, who never could bear the shadow of a suspicion that 
Ellinor was not wisest, best, in all relations and situations of life. 

Mr. Johnson went on, with a deprecatory bow : “Well, 
then — besides, it really is the only course open to her — 
persuade her to rest for this evening. By to-morrow morning 
I will have obtained the sheriff’s leave, and he will most 
likely have heard from London." 

“ Thank you ! I beheve that will be best." 

“ It is the only course,” said he. 

When Miss Monro returned to the bedroom, Ellinor was 
in a heavy, feverish slumber ; so feverish and so uneasy did 
she appear, that, after the hesitation of a moment or two, 
Miss Monro had no scruple in wakening her. 

But she did not appear to understand the answer to her 
request ; she did not seem even to remember that she had 
made any request. 

The journey to England, the misery, the surprises, had 
been too much for her. The morrow morning came, bringing 
the formal free pardon for Abraham Dixon. The sheriff’s 
order for her admission to see the old man lay awaiting her 
wish to use it ; but she knew nothing of all this. 

For days, nay weeks, she hovered between life and death ; 
tended, as of old, by Miss Monro, while good Mrs. Johnson 
was ever willing to assist. 

One summer evening in early June, she awakened into 
memory. 

Miss Monro heard the faint, piping voice, as she kept her 
watch by the bedside. 

“ Where is Dixon ? " asked she. 

“ At the canon’s house at Bromham." This was the 
name of Dr. Livingstone’s country parish. 

“ Why ? " 

“ We thought it better to get him into country air and 
fresh scenes at once." 


587 


A Dark Night’s Work 

“ How is he ? ” 

“Much better. Get strong, and he shall come to see 
you I ” 

“ You are sure all is right ? ” said Ellinor. 

“ Sure, my dear. All is quite right.” 

Then Ellinor went to sleep again, out of very weakness 
and weariness. 

From that time she recovered pretty steadily. Her great 
desire was to return to East Chester as soon as possible. 
The associations of grief, anxiety, and coming illness, con- 
nected with Hellingford, made her wish to be once again in 
the solemn, quiet, sunny close of East Chester. 

Canon Livingstone came over to assist Miss Monro in 
managing the journey with her invalid. But he did not 
intrude himself upon Ellinor, any more than he had done in 
coming from Eome. 

The morning after her return. Miss Monro said — 

“ Do you feel strong enough to see Dixon ? ” 

“ Yes. Is he here ? ” 

“ He is at the canon’s house. He sent for him from 
Bromham, in order that he might be ready for you to see 
him when you wished.” 

“ Please let him come directly,” said Ellinor, flushing 
and trembling. 

She went to the door to meet the tottering old man ; she 
led him to the easy- chair that had been placed and arranged 
for herself ; she knelt down before him, and put his hands 
on her head, he trembling and shaking all the while. 

“ Forgive me all the shame and misery, Dixon ! Say you 
forgive me ; and give me your blessing ! And then let never 
a word of the terrible past be spoken between us ! ” 

“ It’s not for me to forgive you, as never did harm to no 
one ” 

“ But say you do — it will ease my heart.” 

“ I forgive thee ! ” said he. And then he raised himself 
to his feet with effort, and, standing up above her, he blessed 
her solemnly. 


588 


A Dark Night’s Work 

After that he sat down, she by him, gazing at him. 

“ Yon’s a good man, missy,” he said at length, lifting his 
slow eyes and looking at her. “ Better nor t’other ever was.” 

“ He is a good man,” said Ellinor. 

But no more was spoken on the subject. The next day. 
Canon Livingstone made his formal call. Ellinor would fain 
have kept Miss Monro in the room; but that worthy lady 
knew better than to stop. 

They went on, forcing talk on different subjects. At last 
he could speak no longer on everything but that which he 
had most at heart. “ Miss Wilkins ! ” (he had got up, and 
was standing by the mantelpiece, apparently examining the 
ornaments upon it) — “ Miss Wilkins ! is there any chance of 
your giving me a favourable answer now — you know what I 
mean — what we spoke about at the Great Western Hotel, 
that day ? ” 

Ellinor hung her head. 

“ You know that I was once engaged before ? ” 

“Yes! I know; to Mr. Corbet — he that is now the 
judge ; you cannot suppose that would make any difference, 
if that is all. I have loved you, and you only, ever since we 
met, eighteen years ago. Miss Wilkins — Ellinor — put me 
out of suspense 1 ” 

“ I will 1 ” said she, putting out her thin white hand for 
him to take and kiss, almost with tears of gratitude ; but she 
seemed frightened at his impetuosity and tried to check him. 
“ Wait — you have not heard all — my poor, poor father, in a 
fit of anger, irritated beyond all bearing, struck the blow 
that killed Mr. Dunster — Dixon and I knew of it, just after 
the blow was struck — we helped to hide it— we kept the 
secret — my poor father died of sorrow and remorse — you 
now know all — can you still love me ? It seems to me as if 
I had been an accomplice in such a terrible thing I ” 

“ Poor, poor Ellinor I ” said he, now taking her in his 
arms as a shelter. “ How I wish I had known of all this 
years and years ago I I could have stood between you and so 
much.” . 


589 


A Dark Night’s Work 

Those who pass through the village of Bromham, and 
pause to look over the laurel-hedge that separates the 
rectory garden from the road, may often see, on summer 
days, an old, old man, sitting in a wicker-chair, out upon the 
lawn. He leans upon his stick, and seldom raises his bent 
head ; but, for all that, his eyes are on a level with the two 
little fairy children who come to him in all their small joys 
and sorrows, and who learnt to lisp his name almost as soon 
as they did that of their father and mother. 

Nor is Miss Monro often absent; and, although she 
prefers to retain the old house in the Close for winter 
quarters, she generally makes her way across to Canon 
Livingstone’s residence every evening. 


so ENDS “ A DABK NIGHT’s WORK ** 


THE SHAH’S ENGLISH 
GARDENER 



The facts of the following narration were communicated 
to me by Mr. Burton, the head gardener at Teddesley Park, 
in Staffordshire. I had previously been told that he had been 
for a year or two in the service of the Shah of Persia ; and 
this induced me to question him concerning the motives 
which took him so far from England, and the kind of life 
which he led at Teheran. I was so much interested in the 
details he gave me, that I made notes at the time, which 
have enabled me to draw up the following account : — 

Mr. Burton is a fine-looking, healthy man, in the prime 
of life, whose appearance would announce his nation all the 
world over. He had completed his education as a gardener 
at Knight’s, when, in 1848, an application was made to him, 
on behalf of the Shah of Persia, by Colonel Shell, the 
English envoy at the court of Teheran ; who proposed to Mr. 
Burton that he should return to Persia with the second 
Persian secretary to the embassy, Mirza Oosan Koola, and 
take charge of the Eoyal Gardens at Teheran, at a salary of 
a hundred pounds a year, with rooms provided for him, and 
an allowance of two shillings a day for the food of himself 
and the native servant whom he would find it necessary to 
employ. This prospect, and the desire, which is so natural 
to young men, to see countries beyond their own, led Mr. 
Burton to accept the proposal. The Mirza Oosan Koola 
and he left Southampton on the twenty-ninth of September, 
1848, and went by steam to Constantinople. Thence they 

591 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

journeyed without accident to the capital of Persia. The 
seat of government was removed to Teheran about seventy 
years ago, when the Kujur dynasty became possessed of the 
Persian throne. Their faction was predominant in the 
North of Persia, and they, consequently, felt more secure in 
Teheran than in the ancient southern capital. Teheran is 
situated in the midst of a wide plain, from two to three 
hundred miles long, which has a most dreary appearance, 
being totally uncultivated, and the soil of which is a light 
kind of reddish loam, that becomes pulverised after a long 
continuance of dry weather, and then rises as great clouds 
of sand, sometimes even obscuring the sun several hours in 
a day for several successive days. 

Bad news awaited Mr. Burton on his arrival at Teheran. 
The Shah, who had commissioned Colonel Shell to engage 
an English gardener, was dead. His successor cared little 
either about gardening or his predecessor’s engagements. 
Colonel Shell was in England. Mr. Burton’s heart sank a 
little within him ; but, having a stout English spirit, and 
great faith in the British embassy, he insisted on a partial 
fulfilment of the contract. Until this negotiation was com- 
pleted, Mr. Burton was lodged in the house of Mirza Oosan 
Koola. Mr. Burton was, therefore, for a month, a member 
of a Persian household belonging to one of the upper middle 
classes. 

The usual mode of living in one house seemed pretty 
nearly the same in all that fell under the range of Mr. 
Burton’s observation. The Persians get up at sunrise, when 
they have a cup of coffee. The few hours in the day in 
which they condescend to labour in any way, are from 
sunrise until seven or eight o’clock in the morning. After 
that, the heat becomes so intense (frequently one hundred 
and eight or one hundred and nine degrees in the shade) 
that all keep within doors, lying about on mats in passages 
or rooms. At ten they have their first substantial meal ; 
which consists of mutton and rice, stewed together in a rude 
saucepan over a charcoal fire, built out of doors. Sometimes, 

592 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

in addition to this dish, they have a kind of soup, or “ water- 
meat ” (which is the literal translation of the Persian name), 
made of water, mutton, onions, parsley, fowls, rice, dried 
fruits, apricots, almonds, and walnuts, stewed together. 
But this, as we may guess from the multiplicity of the 
ingredients, is a dainty dish. At four o’clock, the panting 
Persians, nearly worn out by the heat of the day, take a 
cup of strongly perfumed tea, with a little bitter-orange juice 
squeezed into it ; and after this tonic they recover strength 
enough to smoke and lounge. Dinner was the grand meal 
of the day, to which they invited friends. It was not unlike 
breakfast, but was preceded by a dessert, at which wine was 
occasionally introduced, but which always consisted of 
melons and dried fruits. The dinner was brought in on a 
pewter tray; but Mr. Burton remarked that the pewter 
dishes were very dingy. A piece of common print was 
spread on the ground, and cakes of bread put on it. They 
had no spoons for the soup, or “ water-meat,” but soaked 
their bread in it, or curled it round into a hollow shape, and 
fished up what they could out of the abyss. At the Mirza’s 
they had spoons for the sour goat’s-milk, with ice, which 
seemed to be one of their delicacies. The ice is brought 
down from the mountains, and sold pretty cheaply in the 
bazaars. Sugar and salt are eaten together with this iced 
sour goat’s-milk. Smoking narghilahs beguiles the evening 
hours very pleasantly. They pluck a quantity of rose- 
blossoms and put them into the water through which the 
smoke passes ; but the roses last in season only a month. 
Mirza Oosan Koola had a few chairs in the house for the use 
of the gentlemen of the Embassy. 

At last the negotiation respecting Mr. Burton’s engage- 
ment was ended. His friends at the Embassy had insisted 
that the present Shah should install him in the office of 
royal gardener at the salary proposed by his predecessor. 
Accordingly, about a month after his arrival at Teheran, he 
took possession of two rooms, appropriated to his use, in the 
garden of El Kanai. This garden consisted of six acres, 

593 2 Q 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

with a mud-wall all round. There were avenues of fruit- 
trees planted, with lucerne growing under them, which was 
cut for the food of the horses in the royal stable ; but the 
lucerne and the trees gave this royal garden very much the 
aspect of an English orchard, and must have been a very 
disenchanting prospect for a well-trained gardener, accus- 
tomed to our flower-beds, and vegetable-gardens. The fruit 
trees were apricots, apples, pears, and cherries — the latter of 
the same description as ours, but finer in quality ; the apricots 
were of a kind which Mr. Burton had never seen before, 
with large sweet kernels. He brought some of the stones 
with him to England, and gave them to his old master, Mr. 
Knight. If this square plot of orchard- ground, surrounded 
by a mud- wall, was the cheerless prospect outside, the two 
rooms which Mr. Burton was to inhabit were not much more 
attractive. Bare of all furniture, with floors of mud and 
chaff beaten together, they did not even contain the mats 
which play so many parts in Persian houses. Mr. Burton’s 
first care was to purchase mats, and hire a servant to market 
and cook for him. The people at the Embassy sent him the 
various bales of seeds, roots, and implements, which he had 
brought with him from England ; and he hoped before long 
to introduce some improvements into Persian gardening ; so 
little did he as yet know the nature of the people with whom 
he had to deal. But before he was well settled in his two 
rooms, while he was yet unpacking his English bales, some 
native plasterers told him that, outside of his wooden door 
(which fastened only with a slight chain), six men lay in 
wait for him to do him evil, partly prompted by the fact of 
his being a foreigner, partly in hopes of obtaining possession 
of some of the contents of these bales. 

It was two miles to the Embassy, and Mr. Burton was 
without a friend nearer; his very informants would not 
stand by him, but would rather rejoice in his discomfiture. 
But, being a brave, resolute man, he picked out a scythe 
from among his English implements, threw open the door, 
and began to address the six men (who, sure enough, lay 

594 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

crouched near the entrance) in the best Persian he could 
muster. His Persian eloquence, or possibly the sight of the 
scythe wielded by a stout, resolute man, produced the desired 
effect : the six men, fortunately, went away, without having 
attacked him, for any effort at self-defence on his part would 
have strengthened the feeling of hostility already strong 
against him. Once more, he was left in quiet to unpack his 
goods, with such shaded light as two windows, covered over 
with paper and calico, could give. But when his tools were 
unpacked — tools selected with such care and such a hoping 
heart in England — who were to use them ? The men 
appointed as gardeners under him would not work, because 
they were never paid. If Mr. Burton made them work, he 
should pay them, they said. At length he did persuade them 
to labour, during the hours in which exertion was possible, 
even to a native. Mr. Burton began to inquire how these 
men were paid, or if their story was true, that they never 
were. It was true that wages for labour doi;ie for the Shah 
were most irregularly given. And, when the money could no 
longer be refused, it was paid in the form of bills upon some 
gate to a town, or some public bath, a hundred or a hundred 
and twenty miles away, such gates and baths being royal 
property. Honest payment of wages being rare, of course 
stealing is plentiful ; and it is even winked at by the royal 
officers. The gardeners under Mr. Burton, for instance, 
would gather the flowers he had cherished with care, and 
present them to any chief who came into the Baugh-el- 
Kanai; and the present they received in turn constituted 
their only means of livelihood. Sometimes, Mr. Burton was 
the sole labourer in this garden, and he had the charge of 
Baugh-el-Colleza, twenty square acres in size, and at some 
distance from El Kanai, where he lived. When the hot 
weather came on, he fell ill of diarrhoea, and for three months 
lay weary and ill on his mat, unable to superintend, if there 
were gardeners, or to work himself, if there were none. 

After he recovered, he seems to have been hopeless of 
doing any good in such a climate, and among such a people, 

595 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

The Shah took little interest in horticulture. He some- 
times came into the gardens of El Kanai (in which his 
palace was situated), and would ask some questions, through 
an interpreter, in a languid, weary kind of way. Sometimes, 
when Mr. Burton had any vegetables ready, he requested 
leave to present them himself to the Shah ; when this was 
accorded, he wove a basket out of the twigs of the white poplar 
(the tree which most abounded on the great barren plain sur- 
rounding Teheran) ; and, filling this with lettuces, or peas, or 
similar garden produce, he was ushered with much ceremony 
into one of the courts (“ small yards," as Mr. Burton once 
irreverently called them) belonging to the palace. There, in a 
kind of balcony projecting from one of the windows, the 
Shah sat ; and the English gardener, without shoes, but 
with the lamb’s-skin fez covering his head, bowed low 
three times, as he gave up his basket to be handed to the 
Shah. Mr. Burton did not perform the Persian salaam, 
considering such a slave-like obeisance unbefitting a 
European. The Shah received these baskets of vegetables, 
some of which were new to him, with great indifference, not 
caring to ask any questions. The spirit of curiosity, how- 
ever, was alive in the harem, if nowhere else ; and, one day, 
Mr. Burton was surprised to receive a command to go and 
sow some annuals in one of the courts of the harem, for such 
was the Queen-mother’s desire. So, taking a few packets of 
common flower-seeds, he went through some rooms in the 
palace, before he arrived at the courts, which open one out of 
another. These rooms Mr. Burton considered as little better, 
whether in size, construction, or furniture, than his own 
garden-dwelling; but there are some apartments in this 
royal palace which are said to be splendid — one hned with 
plate-glass, and several fitted up with the beautiful painted 
windows for which Persia is celebrated. On entering the 
courts belonging to the harem, Mr. Burton found himself 
attended by three or four soldiers and two eunuchs — all with 
drawn swords, which they made a little parade of holding 
above him, rather to his amusement, especially as he seems 

596 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

to have had occasional glimpses of peeping ladies, who 
ought rather to have had the swords held over them. Before 
passing from one yard to another, one or two soldiers would 
precede him, to see that the coast was clear. And if a veiled 
lady chanced, through that ignorance which is bliss all the 
world over, to come into the very yard where he was, the 
soldiers seized him, huddled him into a dark comer, and 
turned his face to the wall ; she, meanwhile, passing through 
under the cover of her servant’s large cloak, something like 
a chicken peeping from under the wing of the hen. What- 
ever might have been their danger from the handsome young 
Englishman, he, at least, was not particularly attracted by 
their appearance. The utmost praise he could bestow was, 
that “ one or two were tolerably good-looking ; ” and, on 
being pressed for details, he said that those ladies of the 
harem of whom he caught a glimpse resembled all other 
Persian women, in having very large features, very coarse 
complexions, and large eyes. They (as well as the men) 
paint the eyebrows, so as to make them appear to meet. 
They are stoutly-built. Such were the observations which 
Mr. Burton made, as he was passing through the yards, or 
courts, which led into the small garden where he was to sow 
his flower-seeds. Here the Queen-mother sat in a projecting 
balcony ; but, as soon as she saw the stranger, she drew back. 
She is about thirty-five years of age, and possesses much 
influence in the country; which, as she is a cruel and 
ambitious woman, has produced great evils. 

One day, Mrs. Shell’s maid, who had accompanied her 
mistress on a visit to the ladies in the harem, fell in with a 
Frenchwoman who had been an inhabitant there for more 
than twenty years. She seemed perfectly contented with 
her situation, and had no wish to exchange it for any other. 

Every now and then Mr. Burton sent flowers to the 
harem : such as he could cultivate in the dry, hot garden, 
with no command of labour. Marvel of Peru, African 
marigolds, single stocks, and violets planted along the sides 
of the walks between planes and poplars, were the flowers 

597 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

he gathered to form his nosesays. But all gardening was 
weary and dreary work ; partly owing to the great heat of 
the climate, partly to the scarcity of water, hut most 
especially because there was no service or assistance to be 
derived from any other man. The men appointed to assist 
him grew more careless and lazy than ever as time rolled 
on ; he had no means of enforcing obedience, or attention, 
and, if he had had, he would not have dared to use it, and so 
to increase the odium that attached to him as a foreigner. 
Moreover, no one cared whether the gardens flourished or 
decayed. If it had not been for the kindness of some of the 
English residents, among whom he especially mentioned 
Mr. Keade, his situation would have been utterly intolerable. 

There was nothing in the external life of the place which 
could compensate for his individual disappointment; at 
least, he perceived nothing. One day, in crossing the 
market-place, he saw eight men lying with their heads cut 
off ; executed for being religious fanatics, who had assumed 
the character of prophets. At another time, there were six 
men put to death for highway robbery; and the mode of 
death was full of horror, whatever their crimes might be. 
They were hung head downwards, with the right arm and 
leg cut off; one of them dragged out hfe in this state for 
three days. Even the minor punishments are cruel and 
vindictive, as they always are where the power and execu- 
tion of the laws is uncertain. One of the penalties in- 
flicted for slight offences, is to have a string passed through 
the nostrils, and to be led for three successive days through 
the bazaars and market-places by a crier, proclaiming the 
nature of the misdemeanour committed. Blindness is very 
common : Mr. Burton has often seen six or eight blind men 
walking in a string, each with his right arm on the shoulder 
of his precursor. It is partly caused by ophthalmia, pro- 
duced by the dust, and partly due to the Shah having it in 
his power to inflict the punishment of pulling out both, or 
one of, the eyes. The great-grandfather of the present Shah, 
Aga Mohammed, the founder of the Kujur dynasty, had 

598 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

large baskets-full of the eyes of his enemies presented to 
him after his accession to the throne. 

Let us change the subject to attar of roses ; though all 
the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the memory of that 
last sentence. Attar of roses is made and sold in the 
bazaars ; the rose employed is the common single pink one, 
which must be gathered before the sudden rise of the hot 
sun causes the dew to evaporate. By the side of the attar- 
sellers may be seen the Jew, selling trinkets ; the Armenians 
— Christians in name, and, as such, bound by no laws of 
Mohammed — selling a sweetish red wine and arrakee, a spirit 
made from the refuse of grapes and resembling gin ; while 
through the bazaars men go, having leathern bags on their 
backs containing bad, dirty water, and a lump of ice in a 
basin, into which they pour out draughts for their customers. 
Ice is brought down from the mountains, and sold at the 
rate of a large lump for two or three pools — a pool being a 
small copper coin, of which thirty make one koraun (silver), 
value eleven-pence; and ten korauns make one tomaun, a 
gold coin of the value of nine shillings. The drinking-water 
is procured from open drains, or from tanks, in which all 
the washing the Persians ever give their clothes is done. 
They use no soap even for shaving ; but soapy water would 
be preferable to the beverage obtained from these sources, 
with vermin floating on its surface. No wonder that the 
cholera returns every three years, and is a fatal scourge; 
especially when we learn that the doctors and barbers in 
Teheran, as formerly in England, unite the two professions 
and that the great resource in all cases of illness is the 
lancet. 

Besides the shops in the bazaars, where provisions and 
beverages of various kinds are sold, there are others for silks, 
carpets, embroidered pieces, something like the Indian shawls, 
but smaller in size, and purchased by the Europeans for waist- 
coats ; and Cashmere shawls, which even there, and though 
not always new, bear the high prices of from fifty pounds to 
one hundred pounds. Those which were presented to the 

599 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

ladies of the Embassy were worth, at Teheran, one hundred 
pounds apiece. There are also lamb’s-skin caps, or fezzes^ 
about half a yard high, conical in shape, and open, or crown- 
less, at the top ; heavier than a hat, but much cooler, owing 
to the ventilation produced by this opening. No Europeans 
wear hats, except one or two at the Embassy. Cotton 
materials are used for dresses by the common people, manu- 
factured at Teheran. There are very few articles of British 
manufacture sold in the bazaars ; but French, German, and 
Eussian things abound. A fondness for watches seems to 
be a Persian weakness ; some of the higher classes will wear 
two at a time, like the English dandies sixty years ago ; and 
sometimes both these watches will be in a state of stand- 
still. It is therefore no wonder that a little German watch- 
maker, who is settled at Teheran, is making his fortune. 
The mode of reckoning time is from sunrise to sunset — 
prayers being said by the faithful before each of these. The 
day and night are each divided into “ watches ” of three 
hours long; subdividing the time between sunrise and 
mid-day, mid-day and sunset. 

Mr. Burton saw little of the religious ceremonies of the 
Persians. He had never been inside a mosque; but had 
seen people saying their prayers at the appointed times (at 
the expiration of every watch through the day, he believed), 
on raised platforms, erected for the purpose, up and down 
the town. The form of washing the hands before they say 
their prayers is gone through by country-people on the 
dusty plain, using soil instead of water — the more purifying 
article of the two, one would suppose, after hearing Mr. 
Burton’s account of the state of the drains and tanks in 
Teheran. The priests are recognised by the white turbans 
which they wear as a class distinction ; and our English 
gardener does not seem to have come in contact with any 
of them, excepting in occasional rencontres in the streets ; 
where the women, veiled and shrouded, shufifle along— their 
veils being transparent just at the eyes, so as to enable them 
to see without being seen; while their clumsy, shapeless 

6qo 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

mantles effectually prevent all recognition, even from husband 
or father. The higher class (the wives of MirzaSy or noble- 
men) are conveyed in a kind of covered hand-barrow from 
plkce to place. This species of rude carriage will hold two 
ladies sitting upright, and has a small door on either side ; 
it is propelled by one before and one behind. 

As long as these national peculiarities were novel enough 
to excite curiosity, Mr. Burton had something to relieve the 
monotony of his life, which was very hopeless in the horti- 
cultural line. By-and-by it sank into great sameness. The 
domestic changes were of much the same kind as the Vicar 
of Wakefield’s migration from the blue bed to the brown : 
for three or four months in the hot season, Mr. Burton con- 
veyed his mat up the mud-staircase, which led from his 
apartments through a trap- door on to the flat roof, and slept 
there. When the hot weather was over, Mr. Burton came 
down under cover. He felt himself becoming utterly weary 
and enervated; and probably wondered less than he had 
done on his first arrival at the lazy way in which the natives 
worked; sitting down, for instance, to build a wall. In- 
difference, which their religion may dignify in some things 
into fatalism, seemed to prevail everywhere and in every 
person. They ate their peas and beans unshelled, rather 
than take any unnecessary trouble ; a piece of piggism which 
especially scandalised him. 

Twice in the year there were great religious festivals, 
which roused the whole people into animation and enthusiasm. 
One in the spring was the Noorooz, when a kind of miracle- 
play was 'acted simultaneously upon the various platforms in 
the city; the grandest representation of all being in the 
market-place, where thirty or forty thousand attended. The 
subject of this play is the death of the sons of Ali; the 
Persians being Sheeah, or followers of Ali, and, as such, 
regarded as schismatics by the more orthodox Turks, who 
do not believe in the three successors of Mohammed. This 
“ mystery ” is admirably performed, and excites the Persians 
to passionate weeping. A Frank ambassador is invariably 

6oi 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

introduced, who comes to intercede for the sons of Ali. This 
is the tradition of the Persians ; and, although not corroborated 
by any European legend, it is so faithfully believed in by the 
Persians, that it has long procured for the Europeans a degree 
of kindly deference, very different from the feeling with which 
they are regarded by the Ali-hating Turks. The other 
religious festival occurs some time in August, and is of much 
the same description ; some event (Mr. Burton believed it 
was the death of Mohammed) being dramatised, and acted in 
all the open public places. The weeping and wailing are as 
general at this representation as at the other. Mr. Burton 
himself said, “ he was so cut up by it, he could not help cry- 
ing ; ” and excused himself for what he evidently considered 
a weakness, by saying that everybody there was doing the 
same. 

Sometimes the Shah rode abroad ; he and his immediate 
attendants were well mounted; but behind, around, came a 
rabble rout to the number of one, two, or even three thousand, 
on broken-down horses, on mules, on beggarly donkeys, or 
running on foot, their rags waving in the wind, everybody, 
anybody, anyhow. The soldiers in attendance did not con- 
tribute to the regularity or uniformity of the scene, as there 
is no regulation height, and the dwarf of four feet ten jostles 
his brother in arms who towers above him at the stature of 
six feet six. 

In strange contrast with this wild tumult and disorderly 
crowd must be one of the Shah’s amusements, which con- 
sists in listening to Mr. Burgess (the appointed English 
interpreter), who translates the Times, Illustrated News, and, 
occasionally, English books, for the pleasure of the Shah. 
One wonders what ideas certain words convey, representative 
of the order and uniform regularity of England. 

In October, 1849, Colonel Shiel returned to Teheran, 
after his sojourn in England; and soon afterwards it was 
arranged that Mr. Burton should leave Persia, and shorten 
his time of engagement to the Shah by one-half. Accord- 
ingly, as soon as he had completed a year in Teheran, he 

602 


The Shah’s English Gardener 

began to make preparations for returning to Europe ; and 
about March, 1850, he arrived at Constantinople, where he 
remained another twelvemonth. The remembrance of Mr. 
Burton’s Oriental life must be in strange contrast to the 
regular, well-ordered comfort of his present existence. 


FRENCH LIFE 


I 


Paris, February, 1862. 

We went to-day along the Boulevard Sevastopol, Eive 
Gauche, to pay a call. I knew the district well about six 
years ago, when it was a network of narrow tortuous streets ; 
the houses high, irregular, picturesque, historical, dirty, and 
unhealthy. I used to have much difficulty in winding my 
way to certain points in the Quartier Latin from the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain, where I was staying. Now, the Hotel 
Cluny is enclosed in a neat garden, the railings of which run 
alongside of the Boulevard Sevastopol; a little further, on 
the same side to the left, the Sorbonne Church is well 
exposed to view ; and the broad artery of the new Boulevard 
runs up to the Luxembourg gardens, making a clear passage 
for air and light through the densely populated quartier. It 
is a great gain in all material points ; a great loss to memory 
and to that kind of imagination which loves to repeople 
places. The street in which our friend lived was old and 
narrow; the trottoir was barely wide enough for one un- 
crinolined person to walk on ; and it was impossible to help 
being splashed by the passing carriages, which indeed threw 
dirt upon the walls of the houses till there was a sort of dado 
of mud all along the street. In the grander streets of former 
days this narrowness did not signify ; the houses were of the 
kind called entre cour et jardin (of which there are specimens 
in Piccadilly), with the porter’s lodge, the offices, and stables 
abutting on the street ; the grand court intervening between 
the noise and bustle and the high dwelling-house of the 

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French Life 

family, which out-topped the low buildings in front. But in 
the humbler street to which we were bound there were few 
houses entre cour et jardin ; and I could not help wondering 
how people bore to live in the perpetual noise, and heavy 
closeness of atmosphere. 

The friend we were going to see, Madame A , had 

lived in this street for many years. Her rooms were lofty 
and tolerably large. The gloomy outlook of the long narrow 
windows was concealed by the closed muslin curtains, which 
were of an irreproachable whiteness. I knew the rooms of 
old. We had to pass through the salle-d-manger to the 
salon ; and from thence we, being intimate friends, went on 
into her bedroom. The salle-d-manger had an inlaid floor, 
very slippery, and without a carpet ; the requisite chairs and 
tables were the only furniture. The pile of clean dinner- 
plates was placed on the top of a china stove ; a fire would 
be Hghted in it, half-an-hour before dinner, which would 
warm the plates as well as the room. The salon was graced 
with the handsome furniture of thirty or forty years ago; 
but it was a room to be looked at rather than used. Indeed, 
the family only sit in it on Sunday evenings, when they 
receive. The floor was parquete in this room, but here and 
there it was covered with small brilliantly- coloured Persian 
carpets : before the sofa, underneath the central table, and 
before the fire. There were the regular pieces of furniture 
which were de rigueur in a French household of respectability 

when Madame A was married : the gilt vases of artificial 

flowers, each under a glass shade ; the clock, with a figure 
of a naked hero, supposed to represent Achilles, leaning on 
his shield (the face of the clock) ; and the gueridon ” (round, 
marble-topped table), which was so long the one indispens- 
able article in a French drawing-room. 

But, altogether, Madame A ’s salon does not look very 

habitable ; and we pass on into the bed-room, which has little 
enough of daylight coming through the high narrow windows, 
but is bright and home-like from the brilliant blaze and 
flicker of the wood-fire on the hearth. In the far corner is 

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French Life 

the bed : a grand four-post, with looped-up draperies of some 
warm colour, which I dare say would prove to be faded if 
one were to see them close, in full country daylight; but 
which look like a pictorial background to the rest of the 
room. On each side of the fire is a great arm-chair; in 
front is a really comfortable sofa : not elegant, nor hard, nor 
gilded hke the sofas in the drawing-room, but broad, low, 
clean, fit to serve, as I dare say it has done before now, for 
a bed on occasion. Parallel to this, but further from the 
fire, is a table with Madame’s work-box; her two pots of 
flowers, looking as fresh as if the plants were growing in a 
country garden ; the miniatures of her children, set up on 
little wooden easels ; and her books of devotion. 

But Madame reads more than books of devotion. She is 
up in the best modern literature of more than one country. 
To-day, we were exceedingly struck with her great powers of 
narration. She seizes the points of a story and reproduces 
them in the most effective simple language. She is certainly 
aided in this by her noble, expressive face, still bearing traces 
of remarkable beauty in the severe and classical style. Her 
gesticulation, too, is unlike what we commonly call French ; 
there is no rapid action of the graceful hands and arms, but 
a gentle and slow movement from time to time, as if they 
sympathized with the varying expression of her face. She 
sat by her fire-side, dressed in black, her constant colour ; 
which she wears as appropriate to her age rather than to her 
condition, for she is not a widow. Every now and then, she 
addressed a few tender words to an invalid of the family ; 
showing that with all her lively interest in the histories she 
was telling us, her eye and ear were watchful for the slightest 
signs of discomfort in another. . . . 

Our conversation drifted along to the old French custom 
of receiving in bed. It was so highly correct, that the 
newly-made wife of the Due de St. Simon went to bed, after 
the early dinner of those days, in order to receive her 
wedding-visits. The Duchesse de Maine, of the same date, 
used to have a bed in the ball-room at Sceaux, and to lie (or 

606 


French Life 

half-sit) there, watching the dancers. I asked if there was 
not some difference in dress between the day- and the night- 

occupation of the bed. But Madame A seemed to think 

there was very little. The custom was put an end to by the 
Eevolution ; but one or two great ladies preserved the habit 

until their death. Madame A had often seen Madame 

de Villette receiving in bed ; she always wore white gloves, 

which Madame A imagined was the only difference 

between the toilette of day and night. Madame de Villette 
was the adopted daughter of Voltaire, and, as such, all the 
daring innovators upon the ancient modes of thought and 
behaviour came to see her, and pay her their respects. She 
was also the widow of the Marquis de Villette, and as such 
she received the homage of the ladies and gentlemen of the 
anden regime. 

Altogether her weekly receptions must have been very 
amusing, from Madame A ’s account. The old Mar- 

quise lay in bed ; around her sat the company ; and, 
as the climax of the visit, she would desire her femme de 
chamhre to hand round the heart of Voltaire, which he had 
bequeathed to her, and which she preserved in a little golden 
case. Then she would begin and tell anecdotes about the 
great man ; great to her, and with some justice. For he had 
been travelling in the South of France, and had stopped to 
pass the night in a friend’s house, where he was very much 
struck by the deep sadness on the face of a girl of seventeen, 
one of his friend’s daughters ; and, on inquiring the cause, 
he found out that, in order to increase the portions of the 
others, this young woman was to be sent into a convent — a 
destination which she extremely disliked. Voltaire saved her 
from it by adopting her, and promising to give her a dot 
sufficient to insure her a respectable marriage. She had 
lived with him for some time at Ferney before she became 
Marquise de Villette. (You will remember the connexion 
existing between her husband’s family and Madame de 
Maintenon, as well as with Bolingbroke’s second wife.) 

Madame de Villette must have been an exceedingly 
607 


French Life 

inconsequente person, to judge from Madame A ’s very 

amusing description of her conversation. Her sentences 
generally began with an assertion which was disproved by 
what followed. Such as, “It was wonderful with what ease 
Voltaire uttered witty impromptus. He would shut himself 
up in his library all the morning, and in the evening he 
would gracefully lead the conversation to the point he desired, 
and then bring out the verse or the epigram he had com- 
posed for the occasion, in the most unpremeditated and easy 
manner ! ” Or, “ He was the most modest of men. When 
a stranger arrived at Ferney, his first care was to take him 
round the village, and to show him all the improvements he 
had made, the good he had done, the church he had built. 
And he was never easy until he had given the new-comer 
the opportunity of hearing his most recent compositions.” 
Then she would show an old grandfather’s high-backed, 
leather, arm-chair, in which she said he wrote his Henriadet 
forgetting that he was at that time quite a young man. 

Madame A said that Madame de Villette’s receptions 

were worth attending, because they conveyed an idea of the 
ways of society before the Eevolution. There was one old 
French marquis, a contemporary of Madame de Villette’s, who 
regularly came with his chapeau-bras under his arm, to pay her 
his respects, and to talk over the good old times when both were 
young. Voltaire had called her “ Belle et Bonne” and by these 
epithets her friend the Marquis saluted her to her dying day. 

Belle et bonne Marquise” (and she had long ceased to 
be “ belle ; ” even the other adjective was a matter of doubt,) 
“do you know why I preserve this old hat with so much 
care, — with reverence, I may say ? ” said this friend to her 
one day. “ Years ago it had the privilege of saving your 
lovely cheek from being cut by the glass of your carriage- 
window, when by some mal-adroitness you were on the point 
of being overturned, .ma belle et bonne Marquise” 

February. — We are staying with a French family of the 
middle class ; and I cannot help noticing the ways of daily 
life here, so different from those of England. We are a 

608 


French Life 

party of seven ; and we live on the fourth floor, which is 
extensive enough to comprise the two sitting-rooms, the bed- 
rooms, the kitchen, and the chamber for the two maids. I 
do not dishke this plan of living in a flat, especially as it is 
managed in Paris. I have seen the same mode adopted in 
Edinburgh and Eome, besides other continental towns ; but, 
as in these towns there is no cmcierge^ I have never liked 
it so much as in Paris. Here it seems to me to save one 
servant’s work, at the least : and, besides this, there is the 
moral advantage of uniting mistresses and maids in a more 
complete family bond. I remember a very charming young 
married lady, who had been brought by her husband from 
the country to share his home in Ashley Buildings, Victoria 
Street, saying that she had two of her former Sunday scholars 
as servants, but that, if they had had to live in the depths 
of a London kitchen, she should not have tried bringing 
them out of their primitive country homes ; as it was, she 
could have them under her own eye without any appearance 
of watching them ; and, besides this, she could hear of their 
joys and sorrows and, by taking an interest in their interests, 
induce them to care for hers. French people appear to me 
to hve in this pleasant kind of familiarity with their servants 
— a familiarity which does not breed contempt, in spite of 
proverbs. 

The concierge here receives letters and parcels for the 
different families in the house, which he generally brings up 
himself, or sends by one of his family. Sometimes they are 
kept in the compartments appropriated to each family in the 
conciergerie ; and any one of the inhabitants who may return 
to the house looks in, and seldom fails to have the com- 
plaisance to bring up letters, cards, or parcels for any family 
living below his Hage. The concierge is paid by the landlord 
for these services, in which is included the carrying up or 
down of a moderate quantity of luggage. A certain portion 
of every load of wood or coal belongs to the conderge^ as 
payment for carrying it up to the respective apartments for 
which it is destined. If he cleans the shoes and knives for 

609 


2 R 


French Life 

any family, they pay him separately. He also expects an 
Mrenne from each of the locataires on New Year’s day; say 
a napoleon from each family, and half that sum from any 
bachelors lodging in the house. Very often he knows how 
to wait at table, and his services are available for a con- 
sideration to any one living in the house. But he must 
always provide a deputy in case of absence from his post. 
As the concierges are, however, generally married, this does 
not press very hard upon him. 

In the house where we are staying, the custom is for 
every one going out at night to lock up their apartment, 
desiring the servants to go to bed at the usual time ; to hide 
the key in some well-known and customary place (under the 
door-mat for instance), and to take a bed-candle down to 
the condergerk. When we return from our party, or what- 
ever it may be, we ring the bell, and the concierge, — perhaps 
asleep in bed in his little cabinet , — “pulls the string, and 
the latch flies up,” as in the days of Little Eed Eidinghood ; 
we come in, shut the great porte-cochei'e, open the ever- 
unfastened door of the conciergerie, light our own particular 
bed-candles at the dim little lamp, pick out any letters, &c., 
belonging to us, which may have come in by the late post, 
and go quietly up stairs. This sounds unsafe to our English 
ears, as it would seem that any one might come in ; but I 
believe there is a small window of inspection in all cmder- 
geries which may be used in cases of suspicion. The" French 
at any rate esteem it more safe than our self-contained 
houses ; and French servants in a modest household, where 
no personal attendants are kept, would be very indignant if 
they had to sit up for their mistresses’ gaieties. For, as a 
rule, French servants are up earlier than English ones. 

In this house is a salle-a-manger with a fire-place, and a 
parquetted floor without a carpet. The shape is an oblong, 
with the two corners near the door of entrance cut off to 
form cupboards. The walls are wainscoted with deal, that 
is afterwards painted oak. The window- curtains and portieres 
are made of handsome dark Algerine stripe. As far as I can 

6io 


French Life 

see, carpets are not considered a necessary article of furniture 
in France, but portikes are. And, certainly, the rich folds of 
the latter, and the polished floors, off which every crumb or 
drop of grease is cleansed immediately, take my fancy very 
much. A door on one side of the windows opens into 
Madame’s room ; on the opposite side, another leads into 
the drawing-room. 

If we were French we should have a cup of cafe-au-lait 
and piece of bread brought into our bedrooms every morning ; 
but, in deference to us as strangers, a tray (without a napkin) 
with sugar, a copper pan containing the boiling milk just 
taken off the kitchen fire, and the white covered jug of 
bright strong coffee, is put on the dining-room table. Also, 
in deference to our English luxury, there is a plate of hutter; 
our French friends never take butter, and not always bread, 
at this early breakfast. But where is the bread? I look 
round, and at last see a basket, about a yard high, standing 
on the ground near the fireplace; it is of dimensions just 
sufficient to hold a roll of bread a yard long and more, and 
about as thick as a man’s wrist. It looks like a veritable 
staff of life. None of our French friends think of completing 
their toilette for this early breakfast, which indeed, as I have 
said, they would have taken in their bedrooms, if we had not 
been here. Nor, indeed, is it any family gathering. I some- 
times see the old black skirts of our hostess quickly vanishing 
into her bedroom at the sound of my approach ; and perhaps 
I find Nanette, the youngest daughter, in a coloured petticoat 
and white camisole, her thick black hair put neatly away 
under a cap which is on the full-dress side of a nightcap. 
She reddens a little as she wishes me Bon jour, as she 
knows that hers is not the finished morning-toilette of an 
English young lady. But, two hours hence, who so neat as 
Nanette in her clean print-gown of some delicate pattern, 
her black hair all brushed, and plaited, and waved, and 
crepe ? For now she has done her household work ; perhaps 
she has helped Julie to make her own bed ; she has certainly 
dusted her room, with all its knick-knacks and ornaments. 

6ii 


French Life 

Madame, too, has been out to market ; half across Paris, 
it may be, in her old black gown, to some shop she knows 
of, where she fancies such and such an article can be had 
better or cheaper. She has gone by the omnibus, taking 
advantage of the correspondance, by which, on payment 
of thirty centimes, and declaring her wish for a correspon- 
dance ticket to the condudeur of that which passes her 
door, she is conveyed in it to the general omnibus office, 
close to the Place des Victoires, where she may have to 
wait for a few minutes for an omnibus going in the direction 
for which her correspondance ticket is taken. If she has to 
return by any of the midway stations at which omnibuses 
stop, she has to purchase a ticket with a number upon it at 
the bureau, and await her turn, at busy times of the day 
— say at five o’clock, at the Place Palais-Eoyal. Her 
number may be eighty-seven, while the next Grenelle omni- 
bus is filling with twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, 
and so on, as the condudeur calls the numbers. But in the 
morning they are not so crowded ; and Madame is always at 
home, and dressed with delicate neatness, by eleven o’clock, 
the time of our “ second dejeuner” or what we should call 
lunch in England. This breakfast consists generally of cold 
meat, a rechauffe of some entree or dressed vegetables of the 
day before, an omelette, bread, wine, and a pot of confitures. 
For us our kind hostess has tea ; but I can see that this is 
not their ordinary custom. It is curious to see how little 
butter is eaten in a French family; they, however, make 
up for this by the much greater use of it in cookery; for 
vegetables form a dish by themselves, always requiring 
either gravy, butter, or oil, in their preparation. After lunch 
is over, we all sit down to work ; perhaps Nanette practises 
a little, and perhaps some of us go out for a walk, but 
always with some object, either of pleasure or business. A 
Frenchwoman never takes a walk in the English consti- 
tutional sense. There are books about in the salon, but 
not so many as in England. They have nothing equivalent 
to “ Mudie ” in Paris, and the books of their circulating 

612 


French Life 

libraries are of so very mixed a character, that no careful 
mother likes to have them lying about on the table. Indeed, 
“ novels and romances ” are under much the same ban as they 
were under in England seventy or eighty years ago. There 
is the last Revue des Deux Mondes, and a pamphlet or two 
besides, l5dng by Madame’s work-basket, and there are the 
standard French authors in the bookcase in the cupboard. 
Yet, somehow, my friends always know what is going on in 
the literary world of Paris. The newspapers here are so 
doctored that they are deprived of much of the interest 
which usually attaches to political news; but I generally 
see La Presse lying about. 

Once a week, Madame “ receives.” Then the covers are 
taken off the furniture in the salon ; a fresh nosegay is put 
in the vase ; Madame and Mademoiselle and Nanette put off 
their final dressing for the day till after the second breakfast, 
and then appear in the gowns they wear on jours de fetes. 
Monsieur keeps out of the way, but nevertheless is much 
disappointed if, when we all meet together at dinner, we have 
not accumulated a little stock of news and gossip to amuse 
him with. Madame’s day of reception is well known to all 
her friends and acquaintances, who make a point of calling 
on her two or three times a season. But sometimes no one 
comes at all on the Thursdays, and it is rather flat to sit 
from two to five or thereabouts in our company dresses, with 
our company faces, all for no use. Then again, on other 
Thursdays, the room is quite full, and I sit and admire 
Madame’s tact. A new arrival comes up to her, and, with- 
out appearing to displace any one, the last comer invariably 
finds an empty chair by the lady of the house. The hostess 
also accompanies every departing guest to the room-door, 
and they part with pretty speeches of affection and good-will, 
sincere enough, I do not doubt, but expressive of just those 
feelings which the English usually keep in the background. 

On Thursdays we have generally much the same sort 
of dinner that in England we associate with the idea of 
washing-days ; for both Julie and Gabrielle have been busy 

613 


French Life 

admitting or letting out visitors ; or at any rate Madame 
anticipated this probability when she ordered dinner. 

The dinner-hour is six o’clock; real, sharp six. And 
here I may warn my English friends of the necessity of 
punctuality to the hour specified in a French dinner invita- 
tion. In England, a quarter of an hour beyond the time is 
considered as nothing, and half an hour’s grace is generally 
acceded. But it is not so in France ; and it is considered 
very ill-bred to be behind the time. And this remark 
applies not merely to the middle-class life I have been 
describing, but to the highest circles. Indeed, the French 
have an idea that punctuality is a virtue unknown among 
the English ; and numerous were the stories of annoyance 
from English unpunctuality which the French officers 
brought home from the Crimea. But, to return to our day 

at Madame ’s. We do not dress for dinner, as we 

should do in England; that ceremony, as they consider it 
— refreshment, as we should call it — is reserved for the days 
when we go into society, and then it takes place after dinner. 

We have soup — always good. On Fridays we have fish ; 
not from any religious feeling, but because that is the day 
when the best fish is brought into Paris, and it is not very 
fresh even then. Then we have a made-dish, or two or 
three times a week the bouilli from which the stock for the 
soup is made — a tender, substantial, little hunch of boiled 
beef of no known joint. Then come the vegetables, cooked 
with thick rich gravy, which raises them to the rank they 
hold in a French dinner, instead of being merely an accessory 
to the meat, as they are in England. The roti and the salad 
follow. The mixing of the salad is too important an opera- 
tion to be trusted to a servant. As we are here, Madame 
does not like to leave her visitors ; but I see Gabrielle peep 
from behind the portieres^ and make a sign to Mademoiselle, 
about five minutes before dinner; and Mademoiselle goes 
into the salle-d-manger, and Madame rather loses the thread 
of her discourse, and looks wistfully after her daughter ; for, 
if Monsieur is particular about anything, it is about his 

614 


French Life 

salads. Strictly speaking, Madame tells me, the vegetables 
ought to be gathered while the soup is on the table, washed 
and cleansed while we are eating the houilliy and sliced and 
dressed with the proper accompaniments while the roti is 
being brought in. Madame’s mother always mixed it at the 
table, she says, and I have no doubt Madame follows the 
hereditary precedent herself, when she has no foreign visitors 
staying with her. After this, a chocolate custard, or a sweet 
omelette, a p^ree of apples, perhaps; and then dessert is 
put on the table — a bit of gruyere cheese under a glass, and 
the “ Quatre MendiantSy' i.e.y nuts, almonds, raisins, figs, 
called after the four begging Orders of friars, because these 
fruits are so cheap that any beggar can have them. 

We have a little cup of black coffee all round, when we 
return to the salon; and, if we were not here, our friends 
would have nothing more that night ; but out of compliment 
to us there is tea at nine o’clock, that is to say, there is hot 
water with a spoonful of tea soaked in it. They look upon 
this mixture in much the same light as we consider sal 
volatile — not quite as a dram, but as something that ought 
to be used medicinally, and not as a beverage. 

March 10th . — Madame and I have had a long talk about 
prices, expenditure, &c. As far as I can make out, provisions 
are to the full as dear as in London ; house-rent is dearer, 
servants’ wages are much the same. She pays her cook and 
housemaid four hundred and fifty and four hundred francs 
respectively. But the household work is differently arranged 
to what it is in England. The cook takes the entire charge 
of a certain portion of the apartment, bedrooms included; 
the housemaid attends to the rest, waits at table, helps one 
of the daughters of the house to get up the fine linen, and 
renders them any little services they may require in dressing. 
The cook is enabled to take part of the household-work, 
because it is the custom in Paris to prepare provisions in 
the shops where they are sold, so that the cook can buy a 
sweetbread, or small joint, or poultry, ready-larded, the 
spinach ready-boiled and pulped for a purky vegetables all 

615 


French Life 

cut into shapes for her soup, and so on. The milk, which 
I had remarked upon as so remarkably good, is, it appears, 
subjected to the supervision of inspectors armed with lacto- 
metres^ delicately- weighted glass-tubes marked with degrees : 
this ought to sink up to a particular number in good un- 
adulterated milk, and all that is brought into Paris is tested 
in this and other ways at the various harri'eres. It is very 
difficult, however, to obtain milk in the afternoons or even- 
ings, even at the cremerks, without ordering it beforehand. 
The Government regulates the price of bread, which is lower 
in Paris than in the neighbouring towns; the legal tariff 
is exposed in every baker’s shop, and false weights and 
measures are severely punished. 

As to dress, from what I can gather, I think that good 
articles bear the same price as in England ; but in our shops 
it is difficult to meet with an inferior article in even moder- 
ately good taste, while in France those who are obliged to 
consider expense can find cheap materials of the most 
elegant design. Then French ladies give up so much more 
thought and time to dress than the English do ; I mean in 
such ways as changing a gown repeatedly in the course of 
a day if occasion requires, taking care never to wear a better 
dress when an inferior one will do — no! not even for five 
unnecessary minutes. And, when handsome articles are 
taken off, they are put by with as much care as if they were 
sleeping babies laid down in a cot. Silver paper is put 
between every fold of velvet or of silk ; cushions of paper 
are placed so as to keep the right sit of any part ; ribbons 
are rolled up ; soiled spots are taken out immediately ; and 
thus the freshness of dress which we so much admire in 
Frenchwomen is preserved ; but, as I said, at a considerable 
expense of time and thought in the case of people of moderate 

means. Madame declares that she knows many a 

young French couple who have reduced their table to the 
lowest degree of meagreness, in order that the wife (especially) 
might be well dressed. She says that dress is the only ex- 
penditure for which a Frenchwoman will go into debt. 

6i6 


French Life 

I remember some years ago hearing a letter from the 

Prince de Ligne read at Lord E ’s. He gave an account 

in it of the then recent coronation at Moscow, and went 
on to speak of the French Emperor’s politics. As one 
of his engines of influence, the Prince gravely named le 
luxe de la toilette^ as an acknowledged political means. At 
the time, I remember, I wondered in silence ; but things have 
come to my knowledge since then which make me under- 
stand what was then meant. Six years ago a friend took 

me to call on Madame de . It was a raw, splashy, 

February day ; and, as we walked through the slushy streets, 
half-covered with melting snow, my friend told me some- 
thing about the lady we were going to see. Madame de 

was married to the eldest son of a Frenchman of rank ; 

she herself belonged to an old family. Her husband was a 
distinguished member of one of the Academies, and held a 
high position among those who had devoted themselves to 
his particular branch of recondite knowledge. Madame 

de was one of the lionnes of Paris, and as a specimen 

of her class we were now going to see her. She and her 
husband had somewhere about seven thousand a year ; but 
for economy’s sake they lived in an apartment rather than 
a house. They had, I think, two or three children. I re- 
collect feeling how out of place my substantial winter-dress 
and my splashed boots were, the moment I entered the little 
hall or anteroom of her apartment. 

The floor was covered with delicate Indian matting, and 
round the walls ran a bordering of snowdrops, crocuses, 
violets, and primroses, as fresh and flowering as if they were 
growing in a wood, but all planted by some Paris gardener 
in boxes of soil, and renewed perpetually. Then we went 
into the lady’s own houdoir. She was about thirty, of a 
very peculiar style of beauty, which grew upon me every 
moment I looked. She had black hair, long black curling 
eyelashes, long soft grey eyes, a smooth olive skin, a dimple, 
and most beautiful teeth. She was in mourning ; her thick 
hair fastened up with great pins of pearls and amethysts, her 

617 


French Life 

ear-rings, brooch, bracelets, all the same. Her gown was of 
black watered silk, lined with violet silk (wherever a lining 
could be seen), her boots black watered silk, her petticoat of 
stijff white silk, with a wreath of violet-coloured embroidery- 
just above the hem. Her manners were soft and caressing 
to the last degree ; and, when she was told that I had come 
to see her as a specimen of her class, she was prettily- 
amused, and took pains to show me all her arrangements 
and coquetteries. In her boudoir there was not a speck of 
gilding ; that would have been bad taste, she said. Around 
the mirrors, framed in white polished wood, creeping plants 
were trained so that the tropical flowers fell over and were 
reflected in the glass. There was a fire, fed with cedar- 
wood chips ; and the crimson velvet curtains on each side of 
the grate had perfumes quilted within their white silk linings. 
The window-curtains were trimmed with point lace. We 

went through a httle ante-chamber to Madame de ’s 

bed-room — an oblong room, with her bed fiUing up half the 
space on one side ; the other all wardrobe, with six or seven 
doors covered with looking-glass, and opening into as many 
closets. After we had admired the rare Pahssy ware, the 
lace draperies of the mirror, the ornaments on the toilette- 
table, and the pink silk curtains of the bed, she laughed her 
little soft laugh, and told me that now I should see how she 
amused herself as she lay in bed of a morning : and pulhng 
something like a bell-rope which hung at the head of her 
bed, the closet doors flew open, and displayed gowns hung 
on wire frames (such as you may see at any milliner’s) : 
gowns for the evening, and gowns for the morning, with the 
appropriate head-dresses, chaussures, and gloves, lying by 
them. 

“ I have not many gowns,” said she. “ I do not like 
having too many, for I never wear them after they are a 
month old ; I give them to my maid then, for I never wear 
anything that is old-fashioned.” 

I was quite satisfied with my lionne. She was quite as 
much out of the way of anything I had ever seen before 

6i8 


French Life 

as I had expected. But, to go on with the bearing she 
had upon the Prince de Ligne’s letter, I must not forget to 

say that Madame de expressed very strong political 

opinions, and all distinctly anti-Bonapartean. Among other 
things she mentioned was the fact that, when her husband 
went to pay his respects as a member of the Academy of 

, to the Emperor at the Tuileries, she would not allow 

him to use their carriage (nor indeed was he willing to do it, 
but went in a hackney coach), saying that the arms of the 

de s should never be seen in the courts of a usurper. 

Two years afterwards I came to Paris, and I inquired after 

M. and Ma i?. me de . To my infinite surprise, I heard 

that he had become a senator, one of that body who receive 
about a thousand pounds a year from Government, and who- 
are admitted to that dignity by the express will of the Em- 
peror. How in the world could it have come about ? And 
Madame, too, at all the balls and receptions at the Tuileries ! 

The arms of the de were no longer invisible in the 

courts of a usurper. What was the reason of this change ? 
Madame’s extravagance. Their income would not suffice 
for her lim de toilette^ and the senator’s salary was a very 
acceptable addition. 

April — We were asked to go in some evening, 

pmr dire le petit ban-soir, at a neighbour’s house. Accord- 

ingly we walked thither about eight o’clock. M. E ’s 

house is one of the most magnificent in this quartier : it 

is on the newly-built Boulevard de Sevastopol. M. E 

himself is a leading man in his particular branch of trade, 
which, in fact, he has made himself ; and he is now a 
French millionaire, as different from an English one as 
francs are different from pounds. I remember, when I first 
knew monsieur and madame, they lived in an apartment 
over the shop ; and this was situated in one of the narrow 
old streets of the Quartier Latin. I was asked there to 
dinner, and I had to make my way through bales of goods, 
that were piled as high as walls on each side of the narrow 
passage through the shop. I went through madame s 

619 


French Life 

bed-room, furnished with purple velvet and amber satin, to 
the room where we assembled before dinner. 

It was a weekly dinner, at which all M. E ’s family 

came, as a matter of course ; and any one connected with 
him in business was also sure of finding a place there. , The 
table was spread with every luxury, and there was almost 
an ostentatious evidence of wealth, which contrasted oddly 
and simply with the hard signs of business and trade down 
below. I fancy their way of living at that time must have 
been like that of the great old City families of the last 
century. And there was another resemblance. Two genera- 
tions ago it was customary for our own London merchants 
to retain their married children under the paternal roof, for 

•the first year at least; and so it was at M. E ’s. His 

own child, his wife’s children — for they had each been 
married before — lived in the same house as he did, both in 
winter and summer, in town and country. Yet the younger 
generation were all married, and had families. All the 
grandchildren, little and big, were assembled at these weekly 
^nners ; if there was not room for them at the principal 
table, there were nurses and servants ready to attend upon 
them at side-tables. And now, when increasing and well- 

deserved prosperity has enabled M. E to remove into 

the large hotel to which we have been to-night, to “ say our 
little good-evening,” I find that his sons and his daughters, 
his maid-servants and his men-servants, have all migrated 
with him in truly patriarchal fashion. 

We did not see them all to-night, for some have already 
gone into the country, whither the others are going to follow 
in a day or two. Out of compliment to us, tea was brought 

in — tea at a guinea the pound, as Madame E informed 

us. I saw that the family did not like the drink well 
enough to wish to join us. There was a little telegraphing 
as to who was to be the victim, and keep us company; 
and the young lady singled out as the tea-drinker for the 
family took care to put in so much sugar that I doubt if she 
could recognise the flavour of anything else. The others 

620 


French Life 

excused themselves from taking tea by saying — one, that she 
had been so feverish all day; another, that he felt him- 
self a good deal excited, and so on. Sugar is considered by 
the French as fitted to soothe the nerves, and to induce 
sleep. I really am becoming a convert to this idea, and can 
take my glass of eau sucrh as well as any one before going 
to bed ; indeed, we have a little tray in our bed-room, on 
which is a Bohemian glass caraffe of water, a goblet with a 
gold spoon, and a bowl of powdered sugar. But I think it 
is a drink for society, not for solitude. Inspirited by the 
example of others, I relish it ; but I never tipple at it in 
private. 

Somehow, to-night we began to talk upon the custom of 
different families of relations living together. I said it would 
never do in England. They asked me, why not ? And, after 
some reflection, I was obliged to confess we all liked our 
own ways too much to be willing to give them up at the 
will of others — were too independent, too great lovers of our 
domestic privacy. I am afraid I gave the impression that 
we English were too ill-tempered and unaccommodating; 
for I drew down upon myself a vehement attack upon the 
difficulties thrown in the way of young people’s marrying in 
England. 

“ Even when there is a great large house, and a table 
well-spread enough to fill many additional mouths, they tell 
me that in England the parents will go on letting their sons 
and daughters waste the best years of their lives in long 

engagements,” said Madame E . “ That does not sound 

to me amiable.” 

“ It is not the custom in France,” put in her husband. 
“ You English are apt to think us bad-tempered, because we 
talk loud, and use a good deal of gesticulation ; but I believe 
we are one of the most good-tempered nations going, in 
spite of the noise we make.” 

By-and-by, some one began to speak of Les Miserahles ; 

and M. E like a prosperous merchant as he is, objected 

to the socialist tendency of the book. From that we went 

621 


French Life 

on talking about a grm (or strike) which had lately taken 
place among the builders in Paris. They had obtained their 
point, whatever it was, because it was the supreme aim of 
the Government to keep the “ blouses ” — the Faubourg St. 
Antoine — in good-humour ; and “ Government,” in fact, has 

the regulation of everything in France. M. E said that 

the carpenters were now about to strike, encouraged by 
the success of the builders, and that he heard from his own 
carpenter that the object they were going to aim at was 
that skilled and unskilled labour should be paid at the same 
rate — viz., five francs a-day. He added that the carpenter, 
his informant, looked upon this project with disfavour, saying 
it might be all very well as long as there was enough of 
work for all ; but, when it grew scarce, none but the best 
workmen would have any employment, as no one would 
send for an inferior craftsman, when he could have a first- 
rate one. for the same money. 

May Uh , — It is becoming intolerably hot in Paris. I 
almost wish the builders would strike, for my part, for the 
carriages scarcely cease rumbling past my open windows 
before two ; and at five the men are clapping and hammer- 
ing at the buildings of the new boulevard opposite. I have 
had to go into the narrow streets of the older parts of Paris 
lately; and the smells there are insufferable — a mixture of 
drains and cookery, which makes one loathe one’s food. 
Yet how interesting these old streets are ! and the people 
inhabiting them are quite different to those of the more 
fashionable quarters : they have so much more originality of 
character about them ; and yet one sees that they are the 
descendants of the Dames de la Halle, who went out to 
Versailles on the memorable fifth of October. 

I see curious little customs too in these more primitive 
parts of the town. Every morning a certain number of 
Sisters of Charity put themselves at the disposal of the 
Maine of the Arrondissements. There were formerly only 
twelve arrondissements ; but now, owing to the extension of 
the city of Paris, there are twenty. In the former days, 

622 


French Life 

before the annexation of the suburbs to the city in 1859, 
by which the number of* the arroTidissements was increased 
to twenty, it was “ slang ” to speak of any disreputable 
person as belonging to the treizieme — an arrondissement not 
recognised by any law. Every such division has a ymire 
and two adjoints, who are responsible for the well-doing 
and well-being of the district in their charge. I see the 
“ Sisters ” leaving the Maine on their errands of mercy 
early every morning. About the same time the chiffonier 
comes his rounds, eagerly raking out the heaps of dust and 
rubbish before the doors. Then, by-and-by — generally, how- 
ever, after eleven, that universal meal-hour — I meet an old 
woman busily trotting along towards the Luxembourg 
Gardens, surrounded by fifteen or twenty little children, aged 
from two or three years to seven or eight. Their parents pay 
the old lady about ten centimes an hour to take their children . 
out, and give them a walk or a game of play in the gardens. 

It is pretty to see her convoy her little regiment over a 
crossing; it reminds me of the old puzzle of the fox, the 
goose, and the bag of corn. The elder children are left in 
charge on one side, while the very httle ones are carried 
over ; then one of the oldest is beckoned across and lectured 
on her care of them, while the old woman trots back for the 
rest ; and I notice she is much more despotic during her short 
reign of power than the old woman herself. At length they 
are past all dangers, and safe in the gardens, where they 
may make dirt-pies to their hearts’ content, while their 
chaperon takes out her knitting and seats herself on a 
bench in their midst. Say she has fifteen children, and 
keeps them out for two hours, it makes her a little income 
of half-a-crown a day ; and many a busy mother is glad that 
her child should have happy play and exercise, while she 
goes a-shopping, or does some other piece of house-keeping 
work, which would prevent her from attending properly 
to her child. Each mairie has its salle d^asile (or infant- 
school) and its creche (or public nursery), under the super- 
intendence of the “ Sisters ; ” but perhaps these are for a 

623 


French Life 

lower class than my little Luxembourg friends. Their 
mothers are, for the most part, tolerably well off, only not 
rich enough to keep a servant expressly for the children. 

Then the shop-placards in these old-fashioned parts of 
the town are often amusing enough. For instance: the 
other day I saw a crowd in a by-street, near the Eue I’Ecole 
de Medecine, all intent upon a great piece of written paper 
put out of the window of a shop, where almost every article 
of woman’s dress was to be sold. It was headed, in letters 
almost a quarter of a yard long : 

MA FEMME EST FOLLE. 

A person, of whom I asked the meaning, laughed a little as 
he said — 

“ Oh ! it is only a contrivance for attracting custom. 
goes on to state, lower down in the paper, that his wife, 
being mad, offered certain gown-pieces for sale yesterday at 
a ruinous price (they are really only about half a franc 
lower than what you can get them for at any other shop) 
that he is miserable in the conflict he is undergoing betweei; 
his honour and the prospect of the sacrifice he will have to 
make, if he sells them at the price his wife offered them for ; 
but, ‘ Honour above all,’ they shall be sold at that price, and 
therefore every one had better rush in and buy.” 

May 1th . — Seeing an apartment to let in the Place Eoyale, 
we went over it yesterday. I have always liked the looks 
of this stately old place ; so full of historical associations 
too. Then, again, the quietness of it charms me; it is 
almost like a cloister, for no carriages can come in ; and the 
sheltered walks under the arcades must be very pleasant to 
the inhabitants on rainy days. The houses are built of very 
handsome red bricks with stone-facings, and all after the 
same plan, designed by an architect of the time of Henry 
IV. — about our Queen Elizabeth’s reign; but, if the Place 
Eoyale were in England, we should date it, judging from the 
style of the architecture, a century later at least. It is more 
like the later additions to Hampton Court. There is a 

624 


French Lite 

pleasant square in the centre, with a fountain, shady chestnut 
trees, and gay flower-beds, and a statue of Louis XIII. in 
the midst. Tradition says, that it was either on this piece 
of ground, or very near it, that the famous masque took 
place in the old Palace des Tournelles, when, the dresses of 
the masquers catching fire, King Charles VI., who was one 
of them, became mad in consequence of the fright ; and, it 
was to soothe his madness, that our present playing-cards 
were invented. 

When first the present place was built, all the fashionable 
world rushed to secure houses in it. This was the old hotel 
of the De Eohans ; that was Cardinal de Richelieu’s before 
his Palais Cardinal— the present Palais Royal— was com- 
pleted ; in this house Madame de Sevigne was born — and so 
on. Now, the ground floor, which was formerly occupied 
by the offices of the great houses above, is turned into shops, 
ware-houses, and cafes of a modest and substantial kind ; 
and the upper floors are inhabited by respectable and well- 
to-do people, who do not make the least pretension to 
fashion. The apartment we went over consisted of five 
handsome and very lofty reception-rooms, opening out of one 
another and lighted by many high narrow windows, opening 
on to a wide balcony at the top of the arcade. One or two 
of these rooms were panelled with looking-glass, but old- 
fashioned, in many pieces, not like our modern plates in 
size. Possibly it was Venetian, and dated from the times of 
the early proprietors. 

The great height of the rooms, as compared to their area, 
struck me much. Only two or three of the rooms had fire- 
places, and these were vast and cavernous. Besides the 
doors of communication between the rooms, there was, in 
each, one papered like the walls, opening into a passage 
which ran the whole length of the apartment. On the 
opposite side of 'this passage there were doors opening into 
the kitchens, store-rooms, servants’ bed-rooms, &c.— so small, 
so close, so unhealthy. Yet in those days there were many 
servants and splendid dinners. Perhaps, however, some of 

625 2 s 


French Life 

the lacqueys slept on the upper floor, to which there is now 
no access from the apartments au premier. At the end of 
the passage was the bed-room of the late proprietress, with 
a closet opening out of it for her maid. The bed-room was 
spacious and grand enough ; but the closet — well, I suppose 
she could lie full length in it, if she was not tall. The only 
provision for light and air was a window opening on to the 
passage. We inquired the rent of this apartment: 3000 francs 
— £120. But perhaps Monsieur le proprietaire might reduce it 
to 2500 francs — £100. The front-rooms were charming in 
their old-fashioned stateliness ; but, if I lived there, I should 
be sorely perplexed as to where my servants were to sleep. 

May IQth . — Utterly weary of the noise and heat of Paris, 
we went out to St. Germain yesterday. I had never been 
there before ; and now, once having been, I want to go again. 
It is only half-an-hour from Paris by railroad. We could 
just see Malmaison as we went along, past pretty villas with 
small gardens brilliant with flowers, as French gardens 
always are. All the plants seem to go into flower ; the mass 
of bloom almost over-balances the leaves. I believe this is 
done by skilful pruning and cutting-in. For instance, they 
take up their rose-trees at the beginning of February, and 
cut off the coarse red suckers and the superfluous growth 
of root. The hedges to these little suburban gardens are 
principally made of acacia, and pollard trees of the same 
species border nearly all the roads near Paris. In the far 
distance, on the left, almost against the horizon, we saw the 
famous Aqueduct de Marly, formerly used to conduct a part 
of the water to Versailles. I do not know what it is in the 
long line of aqueducts and viaducts which charms one. Is 
it the vanishing perspective which seems to lead the eye, and 
through it the mind, to some distant invisible country ? or is 
it merely the association with other aqueducts, with the 
broken arches of the Claudian aqueduct, stretching across 
the Campagna, with Nismes, &c. ? By means of some skil- 
fully-adjusted atmospheric power, the trains have of late 
years been conducted up to nearly the level of the terrace at 

626 


French Life 

St. Germain’s by a pretty steep inclined plane. We went 
up a few steps on leaving the station, and then we were 
oA the plateau, the castle on our left, and a Place at the 
entrance to the town on the right. 

Nothing could be more desolate-looking than the chateau ; 
the dull-red hricks of which it is built are painted dark-lead 
colour round the many tiers of windows, the glass in which 
is broken in numerous places, its place being here and there 
supplied by iron bars. Somehow, the epithet that rose to our 
lips on first seeing the colouring of the whole place, was 
“ livid.” Nor is the present occupation of the grim old chateau 
one to suggest cheerful thoughts. After being a palace, it 
was degraded to a caserne, or barracks, and from that it has 
come down to he a penitentiary. All round the building 
there is a deep dry area, railed round ; and now I have said 
all I can against St. Germain and recorded a faithful impres- 
sion at first sight. But, two minutes afterwards, there came 
a lovely slant of sun-light ; the sun had been behind a fine 
thunderous cloud, and emerged just at the right moment, 
causing all the projections in the chateau to throw deep 
shadows, brightening the tints in all the other parts, calling 
out the vivid colours in the flower-beds that surround the 
railing on the park side of the chateau, and half-compelling 
us with its hot brilliancy, half luring us by the full fresh 
green it gave to the foliage, to seek the shelter of the woods 
not two hundred yards beyond the entrance to the park. 

We did not know where we were going to, we only knew 
that it was shadowed ground ; while the “ English garden ” 
we passed over was all one blaze of sunlight and scarlet 
geraniums, and intensely blue lobelias, yellow calceolarias, 
and other hot-looking flowers. The space below the ancient 
mighty oaks and chestnut-trees was gravelled over, and 
given up to nursery-maids and children, with here and there 
an invalid sitting on the benches. Mary and Irene were 
bent upon sketching; so we wandered on to find the im- 
possible point of view which is to combine all the excellences 
desired by two eager sketchers. So we loitered over another 

627 


French Life 

hundred yards in the cool shade of the trees. And suddenly 
we were on the terrace, looking down over a plain steeped 
in sunlight, and extending for twenty miles and more. We 
all exclaimed with delight at its unexpectedness ; and yet we 
had heard of the terrace at St. Germain, and associated it 
with James II. and Maria d’Este all our lives. The terrace 
is a walk as broad as a street, on the edge of the bluff over- 
hanging the silver tortuous Seine. It is bounded by a wall, 
just the right height for one to lean upon and gaze and 
muse upon the landscape below. The mellow mist of a 
lovely day enveloped the more distant objects then ; but we 
came again in the evening, when all the gay world of St. 
Germain was out and abroad on the terrace hstening to the 
music of the band; and we could then distinguish the 
aqueduct of Marly on our right, before us the old woods of 
Vesinet — that ill-omened relic of the ancient forest that 
covered the He de France ; and here in the very centre is 
the star-shaped space called La Table de la Trahison ; here it 
was that Ganelan de Hauteville planned to betray Eoland 
the Brave and the twelve peers of France, at Eoncevaux; 
and on the very spot the traitors were burnt to death by the 
order of Charlemagne. 

Beyond Vesinet rise the fortified heights of Mont Valerien 
and Montmartre ; so we know that the great city of Paris, 
with its perpetual noise and bustle, must be the cause of that 
thickening of the golden air just beyond the rising ground 
in the mid-distance. And some one found out — far away 
again — as far as eye could see, the spire of the Cathedral of 
St. Denis, and Irene fell to moralizing and comparing. The 
palace, she said, was ever present — an every-day fact to the 
great old kings who had inhabited it — and fertile life and 
busy pomp were the golden interspace which all but con- 
cealed from them the inevitable grave at St. Denis. But 
sermons always make me hungry ; and Irene’s moralising 
seemed to have the same effect on herself as well as 
on us, or else it was the “ nimble ” air — for that epithet of 
Sbakspeare’s exactly fits the clear brisk air of St. Germain. 

628 


French Life 

They sat down to sketch, and I was sent in search of 
provender. 

I could not find a confectioner’s, nor, indeed, would it 
have been of much use, for French confectioners only sell 
sugary or creamy nothings, extremely unsatisfactory to 
hungry people. So I went boldly into the restaurant to the 
right of the station — the Cafe Galle, I think it was called, — 
and told the Dame du Comptoir my errand. I was in hopes 
that she would have allowed one of the gargons to accom- 
pany me with a basket of provisions, and some plates, and 
knives and forks ; perhaps some glasses, and a bottle of 
wine. But it seemed that this was against the rules ; and 
all I could do was, to have the loan of a basket for a short 
time. Madame split up some oval rolls of delicious bread, 
buttered them, and placed some slices of raw ham between 
the pieces ; and with these, and some fresh strawberries, I 
returned to my merry, hungry sketchers, who were beginning 
to find that a seat on the hard gravel was not quite so agree- 
able as sitting on (comparatively) soft English turf. Yet 
the benches were too high for their purpose. After eating 
their lunch, they relapsed into silence and hard work. 

It was rather dull for me ; so I rambled about, struck up 
an acquaintanceship with one of the gardeners, and with a 
hackney-coachman, who tried to tempt me into engaging 
him for a amrse to Versailles by Marly-le-Eoi — the Marly, 
the famous Marly of Louis XIV., of which the faint vestiges 
alone remain in the marks of the old garden plots. I 
was tempted. I remembered what St. Simon says; how 
the king, weary of noise and grandeur, found out a little 
narrow valley within a few miles of his magnificent and 
sumptuous Versailles ; there was a village near this hollow 
for it really was nothing more — and this village was called 
Marly, whence the name of the palace or hermitage which 
the king chose to have built. He thought that he went 
there to lead a simple and primitive life, away from the 
flattery of his courtiers. But it is not so easy for a king to 
avoid flattery. His architect built one great pavilion, which 

629 


French Life 

was to represent the sun ; in it dwelt Louis XIV. There 
were twelve smaller pavilions surrounding this large one ; in 
them dwelt the planets, that is to say, the favourite courtiers 
of the time being. Every morning the king set out to visit 
his satellites ; there were six on one side of the parterre, six 
on the other ; and their pavilions communicated with each 
other by means of close avenues of lime-trees. It was 
etiquette for these courtiers to salute the king, who had 
taken the sun for his device, by placing their right hand so 
as to shade their eyes from his brilliancy ; hence, some 
people say, our own military salute. Each courtier, as he 
was visited, followed the king in his round. At first, the 
king came to Marly only two or three times a year, staying 
from Wednesday to Saturday ; he only brought a compara- 
tively moderate train ; but in time he grew weary of his 
so-called simplicity, and the surrounding hills were scooped 
out to make gardens, and woods, and waterworks ; and 
statues and courtiers thronged the place. Still, as no one 
could come here without express invitation from the king, 
to be of the parties to Marly was an object to be longed for, 
and asked for, and intrigued for. Indeed, it was the highest 
favour that could be obtained from royalty. At the last 
moment of awful suspense as to who was to go, the king’s 
valet de chamhre, Bontemps, went round with the invita- 
tions. There was no need of preparation, for in each pavilion 
there was a store of all things needed for masculine and 
feminine toilettes. Only two could inhabit a pavilion ; and, 
if a married lady was asked, her husband was included in 
the invitation, though not in the compliment. 

But, to the end of his reign, the days for Marly were 
invariable. Sunday the King spent, as became the eldest 
son of the Church, at his parish of Versailles ; Monday and 
Tuesday he allowed himself to be worshipped by the whole 
court at Versailles ; on Wednesday he went to Marly with 
the selected few. The amusements at Marly were high play, 
or, as it might be called, gambling ; and a kind of bazaar, 
where the ladies dressed themselves up as Syrians, Japanese, 

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Greeks, what not, and played at keeping shop ; the king 
furnishing the infinite variety of things sold. Louis XV. 
and his unfortunate successor went to Marly occasionally ; 
but the great days of Marly were over when Louis XIV. 
died. After that, the Governor of St. Germain kept the 
keys of Marly, and occasionally lent the use of the pavilions 
to his private friends. But the Convention did not approve 
of this appropriation of national property; and the old statues, 
the remains of magnificent furniture, the marbles, and the 
mirrors, were sold for the good of the people. Some one 
bought the buildings and turned them into a spinning-mill ; 
but it was not a profitable speculation, and by-and-by the 
whole place was pulled down ; but I believe you may yet 
trace out the foundations of the Palace of the Sun. So that 
was why I wanted to see Marly — a place once so famous 
and so populous gone to ruin, nay, the very ruins themselves 
covered up by nature with her soft harmony of grass and 
flowers. 

How much would it cost, how long would it take, I asked 
the hackney-coachman, to go by Marly to Versailles in time 
to catch the last train thence to Paris ? It would take an 
hour, not including any stopping at Marly, and it would cost 
fifteen francs, also not including any stoppage at Marly. I 
was vexed at the man for thinking I could be so grossly 
imposed upon. Why, two francs an hour, with a decent pour- 
hoire, was on the tariff of every carriage ; so I turned away 
in silent indignation, heedless of his cries of “ Dix francs, 
madame. Tenez ! huit — cinq — ce que vous voulez, madame / ” 

And immediately afterwards I was glad I had not planned 
to leave St. Germain an hour earlier than was necessary — 
the place looked so bright and cheerful, with all the gaily- 
dressed people streaming over the Place du Chateau, to go to 
the terrace and hear the band. I went into the restaurant, 
and ordered coffee to be ready at six, and had a little more 
gossip with the Dame du Comptoir. She told me that no 
one was admitted to see the interior of the castle, although 
it was no longer a penitentiary ; that the air at St. Germain 

631 


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was better and purer than at any other place within twenty 
miles of Paris ; and that I ought to come and see the forest 
of St. Germain at the time of the Fete des Loges — a sort of 
open-air festival held in the forest on the 30th of August; 
and all the waiters at liberty came forward to make a chorus 
in praise of the merry-go-rounds, mountebanks, wine, stoves 
cooking viands, spits turning joints, and general merriment, 
which seemed to go on at this fair, which took its rise in the 
pilgrimages made to a certain hermitage built by a devout 
seigneur of the time of Louis XIII. 

Then I went back to Mary and Irene, and told them my 
adventures ; and we all, attracted by the good music of the 
military band, went on to the crowded terrace and leant 
over the wall, and saw the view I have described, and gazed 
down into the green depths of the far-stretching forest, and 
wondered if we should not have done wiser to have gone 
thither and spent our day there. And so to our excellent 
coffee and bread, and then back to Paris. 


II 


Chartres, May 10th, 1862. 

We were quite worn out with the ever increasing noise of 
Paris ; or, perhaps, I should rather say, as the heat became 
greater, so our necessity for open windows by day and by 
night increased ; and the masons opposite rose to their work 
with the early morning light. So we determined to go off to 
Britanny for our few remaining days, having a sort of happy 
mixture of the ideas of sea, heath, rocks, ferns, and Madame 
de Sevigne in our heads. The one and first destined point 
in our plans was to see the cathedral at Chartres. 

We left Paris about three o’clock, and went past several 
stations, the names of which reminded us of Madame de 
Sevigne’s time — Eambouillet, perhaps, the most of all. The 
station is some distance from the town of Chartres, which, 

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like so many French provincial towns, consists of a Place, 
and a few appendent streets. The magnificent cathedral 
stands a little aloof ; we left it on one side as we came in an 
omnibus up to our hotel, which looked on to the Place. But 
alas for my hopes of a quiet night ! The space before the 
house is filled with booths — dancing-booths, acting-booths, 
wild-beast shows, music-booths, each and all making their 
own separate and distinct noises ; the “ touter ” to one booth 
sitting in front of it and blowing a trumpet as hard as any 
angel in the old pictures ; the hero of the theatrical booth 
walking backwards and forwards in front of his stage, and 
ranting away in King Cambyses’ vein ; the lions and tigers 
are raging with hunger, to judge from their roars ; and the 
musicians are in the full burst of the overture to Guillawne 
Tell. Mary and Irene have gone out, in spite of it all, to 
have a peep at the cathedral before it is too dark; and I 
have chosen our bed-rooms. If the lion only knew it, he 
could easily make a spring into our balcony ; but I hope, as he 
is great, he will be stupid. I have rung the bell, and rung the 
bell, and gone out in the corridor and called ; and, at last, I 
shall have to go downstairs, to try and find some one to 
bring up the meal which I have promised the others they 
shall find ready on their return. I have been and found 
Madame, and laid my complaint before her. She says the 
servants are all gone out to see the shows in the Place, 
which is very wicked in them ; but I suspect, from her 
breathless way of speaking, she has only just rushed in 
herself, to see that I am not running away with the house. 
I fancy I am the only person in it. She assures me, with 
true French volubility, that she will send up some coffee 
and bread directly, and will scold Jeanette well. 

May ll^A. — Mary and Irene returned from the cathedral 
last night before anything was ready, and were too full of 
the extraordinary architectural magnificence they had seen 
to care about my Martha-like troubles. But I had not seen 
the cathedral ; and I was hungry if they were not. I went 
down again, and this time I found Madame in full tilt 

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against an unfortunate woman, who looked as if she had 
been captured, vi et armiSy out of the open-air gaiety and the 
pleasant company of friends in the Place. She brought us 
up our meal with sullen speed, giving me occasionally such 
scowls of anger that I almost grew afraid at the feeling I 
had provoked. Yet she refused to be soothed by our little 
expressions of admiration for the fair, and our questions as 
to what was to be seen. Her only attempt at an apology 
was a sort of grumbling soliloquy, to the effect that ladies 
who knew what was confirm il faut would never have gone 
out so late in the evening of a jour de fete to walk about the 
town ; and that, as Mary and Irene had done this improper 
thing, there was no knowing when, if ever, they would 
return. I wish she had let us try to comfort her, for I really 
was very sorry to have dragged a poor creature back from 
what was, perhaps, the great enjoyment of the year. After 
our coffee we went to bed ; and I am not at all sure if we 
were not, for some hours, the only occupants of the hotel. 
But the lion did not take advantage of his opportunity, 
though we were obliged to leave the windows open for the 
heat. This morning we went to see the cathedral. It is so 
wonderfully beautiful that no words can describe it. I am 
thoroughly glad we came by Chartres. 

May V2ith . — Vitre . — We came on here yesterday afternoon. 
Irene, who is the most wide-awake person I know, sat 
upright in the railway-carriage, looking out of the window 
with eager, intelligent eyes, and noting all she saw. It was 
a fete day ; and at all the ‘Httle cabarets, with their wayside 
gardens, there were groups of peasants in their holiday dress, 
drinking what appeared to be cider, from its being in large 
stone bottles, and eating galette — a sort of flat cake of puff- 
paste, dusted over with powdered sugar, with which we had 
become well acquainted in Paris. The eating and drinking 
seemed, however, to be rather an excuse for sitting round 
well-scoured tables in the open air, than an object in itself. 
I sank back in my seat in a lazy, unobservant frame of 
mind, when Irene called out, “ Oh, look ! there is a peasant 

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French Life 

in the goat-skin dress one reads about; we must be in 
Britanny now ; look, look ! ” I bad to sit up again and be on 
the alert ; all the time thinking bow bad for the brain it was 
to be straining one’s attention perpetually after the fast- 
flitting objects to be seen through a railway carriage window. 
This is a very good theory ; but it did not quite bold water 
in practice. Irene was as bright as ever when we stopped 
at Vitr^ ; I was tired and stupid. Perhaps the secret was, 
that I did unwillingly what she did with pleasure. 

The station at Yitre is a little outside the town, and is 
smart and new and in apple-pie order, as a station on a line 
that has to make its character ought to be. The town, on 
the contrary, is ancient, picturesque, and deserted. There 
have been fortified walls all round it, but these are now 
broken down in many places, and small hovels have been 
built of the debris wherever this is the case, giving one the 
impression of a town stuffed too full, which has burst its 
confines and run over. Yet inside the walls there are many 
empty houses, and many grand fortified dwellings, with coats 
of arms emblazoned over the doorway, which are only 
half-occupied. All the little world of the town seemed to 
be at the railway-station, and everybody welcomed us with 
noise and advice. The inn down in our ten-years-old 
Murray no longer existed ; so we were glad to be told of the 
“ Hotel Sevigne,” although we suspected it to be a mere 
trick of a name. Not at all. We are really veritably lodged 
in the very house she occupied, when she left Les Eochers 
to come and do the honours of Vitre to the Governor of 
Britanny — the Due de Chaulnes. Our hotel is the “ Tour de 
Sevigne ” of her letters. On being told this, I asked for the 
tower itself. It had been pulled down only a year or two 
before, in order to make the great rambling mansion more 
compact as an hotel. As it was, they had changed the main 
entrance from back to front ; and to arrive at it, we had to 
go over a great piece of vacant irregular ground, the in- 
equahties of which were caused by the debris of the tower. 

The place belongs to the Marquis de N^thumieres, a 

635 


French Life 

descendant of the de Sevignes, so our host said. At any 
rate, he lives at Les Eochers, and owns our hotel. It seems 
as though our landlord had not had capital enough to 
furnish the whole of this immense, far- stretching house, 
which is entered in the middle of the building with long 
corridors to the right and to the left, both upstairs and 
downstairs — corridors so wide and well-lighted by the 
numerous windows looking to the back (or town-side), that 
they are used as store-rooms and sculleries. Here there are 
great sacks of corn and unpacked boxes of possible groceries ; 
there a girl sits and sings as she mends the house-linen by a 
window, apparently diligent enough, but perfectly aware, all 
the time, that the ostler in the yard below is trying to attract 
her attention; and there, again, a woman is standing, 
shoulders square, to an open window, “topping and tailing” 
a basket of gooseberries, and shouting out her part of a 
conversation with some one unseen in the yard below. Yet 
the great corridor looks empty and strangely deserted. 
Somehow, I suppose that as soon as I heard the name of 
“ Tour de Sevign6,” I expected to see a fair, plump lady, in 
hanging sleeves and long light-brown ringlets, walking before 
me wherever I went, half-turning her pretty profile over her 
white shoulder to say something bright and playful; and, 
instead, we follow our rather spruce landlord into the bed- 
rooms at the end of the corridor, and coolly order our dinner 
for this day of May, 1862. 

The rooms in this house are not large, but so very lofty, 
that I suspect that the panelled partition walls are but later 
wooden divisions of larger rooms ; and so, on tapping, we find 
to be the case. My window looks out on the country outside 
the town ; Irene’s is just on the opposite side, and she sees 
roofs of deeply furrowed tiles^ — roofs of every possible angle 
and shape, but mostly high pitched ; they are covered with 
golden and grey lichens which tone down the old original 
red. There are broad gutters round the verge of every one, 
regular cats’ Pall Malls. And see, there is an old black 
grimalkin coming round yonder comer, with meek and sleepy 

636 


French Life 

gait, of course entirely unconscious of the flock of pigeons 
towards which she is advancing with her velvet steps. They 
strut and pout and ruffle themselves up, turning their pretty 
soft plumage to the sun tiU they catch the rainbow tints ; 
and whiff — they are all off in mid-air, and the hypocritical 
cat has to go on walking in the gutter, as if pigeons had been 
the last thing in her thoughts when she made that playful 
spring round the corner. How picturesque the old town 
looks beyond, though, to be sure, we see little besides roofs 
— the streets must be so narrow ! Let us make haste and 
have our meal, and go out before the sun sets. Pigeons 
for dinner! Ah, Pussy, we begin to have a fellow-feeling 
for you. 

May IZth . — We have had a busy day, but a very pleasant 
one. In the first place, we had a long talk with our land- 
lord about the possibility of seeing Les Eochers. The 
Marquis was very strict about not letting it be shown with- 
out his permission, and he and Madame were known to be 
at Eennes ; so we thought of giving it up. Then our land- 
lord turned round in his opinions, and said that doubtless 
the Marquis and Madame would be very sorry for any 
foreigners to come so far on a bootless errand; and so — 
after a good many pro’s and con’s, we always following our 
landlord’s lead, and agreeing to all that he said, in hopes of 
getting to the end of the discussion — we made a bargain for 
a little conveyance, half Irish car, half market cart, which 
was to take us to Les Eochers, and to stay there as long as 
we liked. Who so merry as we this bright dewy May morn- 
ing, cramped up in our jolting, rattling carriage, the fourth 
place occupied by sketch-books and drawing materials? 
First, we rattled along the narrow streets of Vitre ; the first 
floors of the houses are propped up upon black beams of 
wood, making a rude sort of colonnade, under which people 
walk; something like Chester— and then we passed out of 
the old turretted gate of the town, into the full and pleasant 
hght of early morning. 

We began to climb a hill, the road winding round Vitr^, 

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French Life 

till we peeped down upon the irregular roofs and stacks of 
chimneys pent in the circular walls ; and we saw the remains 
of the old castle, inhabited by the Due and Duchesse de 
Chaulnes, in the days when Madame de Sevigne came to 
stay at the “ Tour ”, and show hospitality to her Paris friends 
in that barbarous region. And now we were on a high level, 
driving along pretty wooded lanes, with here and there a 
country chateau or manor house, surrounded by orchards on 
either side of us. Towards one of these our driver pointed. 
It was low and gabled; I have seen a hundred such in 
England. “ That is the old house of the De la Tremou- 
illes,” said he. And then we began to think of a daughter of 
that house who had been transplanted by marriage into 
England, and was known in English history and romance as 
Charlotte, the heroic Countess of Derby. By this time we 
had made great friends with our driver, by admiring his brisk 
little Breton pony, and asking him various questions about 
Breton cows. Suddenly he turned into a field-road on our 
left; and in three minutes we were in full sight of Les 
Eochers. We got down, and looked about us. We were on 
the narrow side of an oblong of fine delicate grass ; on our 
right were peaked-roof farm buildings, granaries, barns, 
stables, and cow-houses ; opposite to us, a thick wood, show- 
ing dark in the sunlight ; in the corner to our left was the 
house, with tourelles and towers, and bits of high-roof, and 
small irregular doors ; a much larger and grander building 
than I had expected ; very like the larger castles in Scotland. 
Then quite on our right was the low wall, and ha-ha of the 
gardens, and the bridge over the ha-ha, and the richly- 
worked iron gates. We turned round ; we were at the edge 
of the rising ground which fell rather abruptly from this 
point into a rich smiling plain — the Bocage country, in fact. 
We could see far away for miles and miles, till it all melted 
into the blue haze of distance. 

Our driver took out his horse, and went to make friends 
with the farm-servants, who had turned out with lazy curi- 
osity to look at the strangers. We sat down on the ground ; 

638 



LES ROCHERS 







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French Life 

the turf was fine and delicate, and the httle flowerets inter- 
spersed were all of such kinds as tell of a lime-soil and of 
pure air. There were larks up above, right in the depth of 
the blue sky, singing as if they would crack their throats for 
joy ; the sort of open farm -yard before us was full of busy, 
prosperous poultry of all kinds — hens clucking up their large 
broods of chickens, cocks triumphantly summoning their 
wives to the feast before the barn-door, fussy turkeys strut- 
ting and gobbling, and flocks of pigeons, now basking on the 
roof, now fluttering down to the ground. There were dogs 
baying in the unseen background, to add to the various 
noises. I never saw a place so suggestive of the ideas of 
peace and plenty. There were cows, too, tethered in the 
dusky shadows of the open cow-houses, with heaps of cut 
green food before them. 

Our plan was to sketch first, and then to try to see the 
house. Now and then a servant in rather clumsy livery, or 
a maid in the country dress of Britanny, went across the 
space, to have a little talk with the farm-servants, and a side- 
long look at us. At last an old man in a blue blouse came 
out from the group near the bam door, and slowly approach- 
ing, sat himself down on a hillock near. Of course we began 
to talk, seeing his sociable intentions ; and he told us he was 
a De la Eoux, and had relations “ in London.” I fancied he 
might mean the De la Eues, but he corrected my mis-spell- 
ing with some indignation, and again asked me if I did not 
know his relations in London — the De la Eoux. Ah yes ! 
they were noble, he was noble ; his ancestors had been as 
great as the ancestors of the Marquis yonder, but they had 
taken the wrong side in the wars ; and here was he, their 
grandchild, obliged to work for his daily bread. We sighed 
out of sympathy with his sighs, and amplified the text, “ Sic 
transit” &c. Then he offered us a pinch of snuff, which we 
took, and sneezed accordingly; and this afforded our old 
friend much amusement. To wind up this little story all at 
once — when we were going away, we demurred as to whether 
we could venture to offer a De la Eoux a couple of francs, or 

639 


French Life 

whether it would not seem like an insult to his noble blood. 
The wisdom of age carried the day against the romance of 
youth, and was justified in seeing the eager eyes in the worn 
sharp face watching the first initiatory sign of a forthcoming 
gift with trembling satisfaction. How pleasant the long 
quiet morning was ! A cloud-shadow passing over us, a 
horse coming too near with its loud champing of the sweet 
herbage, our only disturbance ; while before us the evident 
leisure for gossip, and signs of plenty to eat, filled up the 
idea of rural happiness. Then we went and saw the house, 
and the portraits, and passed out of the window into the 
garden — like all French gardens — with neglected grass, and 
stone-fountains, and cut yews and cypresses, and a profusion 
of lovely flowers, roses especially. We were all very sorry 
to come away. 

Early this evening, Mary and Irene went out to sketch, 
and planted themselves down in a street already occupied 
by picturesque booths and open-air shops for pottery, men’s 
clothes, and the really serviceable articles for country use. 
It seems it was the market-day at Vitre ; and it was very 
pretty to watch the young housewives in their best attire, 
bargaining and hesitating over their purchases. Their dress 
was invariably a gown of some bright coloured cotton, a 
handkerchief of the same material, but a different colour, 
crossed over the breast a la Marie Antoinette, and a large 
apron, with a bib of a third hue almost covering the petti- 
coat, and confining and defining the bust. They rung the 
changes on turkey-red, bright golden brown, and full dark 
blue. Indeed, the dark narrow streets, with their colonnades, 
black with the coming shadows, needed this relief of colour. 

The little boys of Vitre, let loose from, school, came 
clustering round about our sketchers. It was certainly a 
great temptation to the lads : but they came too close, and 
entirely obstructed the view, and only laughed, at first shyly, 
afterwards a little rudely, at my remonstrances. I applied 
to a gendarme^ slowly coming down the street, but he only 
shrugged his shoulders with the hopeless beginning of “ Que 

640 


French Life 

voulez-vous, Madame ! I am not here to impede the concourse 
of children,” and passed on. Just at this moment a stout 
woman selling men’s clothes in the open street close by, 
observed the dilemma, and came to the rescue. She wielded 
a pair of good strong fustian trousers, and scolded in right 
down earnest — and also in right-down good-humour, casting 
her weapon about her with considerable dexterity, so as to 
make it answer the purpose of a cat-o’-nine-tails. And thus 
she cleared a circle for us ; and whenever she saw us too 
much crowded she came again ; and the lads laughed, and 
we laughed, and we all ended capital friends. By-and-by 
she began to pack up her stock of clothes : she had a cart 
brought to her by her husband, and first she took down the 
poles of her booth, and then the awning, then the impromptu 
counter came to pieces, and lastly the coats and trousers, 
the blouses and jackets, were packed into great sacks. And 
she was on the point of departure — being, as we afterwards 
heard, a pedlaress who made the circuit of the markets in 
the district with her wares — when I thought that the only 
civility I could offer her was to show her the drawings that 
Mary and Irene had made, thanks to her well-timed inter- 
position. She swore many a good round oath to enforce 
her admiration of the sketches, and called her little obedient 
husband to look at them; but, on his failing to recognise 
some object, she gave him a good cuff on the ear, apologising 
to us for his stupidity. I do not think he liked her a bit the 
less for this conduct. 

May Uh . — We have decided to return to England to see 
the Exhibition. We are going by Fougeres, Pont Orson, 
Mont St. Michel, Avranches, Caen, and Eouen ; and by that 
time we shall have made an agreeable “ loop ” of a httle 
journey full of objects of interest. 

*####* 

February l&h, 1863 .— Again in Paris ! and, as I remember 
a young English girl saying with great delight, “ we need 
never be an evening at home ! ” But her visions were of 
balls ; our possibilities are the very pleasant ones of being 

641 2 T 


French Life 

allowed to go in on certain evenings of the week to the 
houses of different friends, sure to find them at home ready 
to welcome any who may come in. Thus, on Mondays, 

Madame de Circourt receives ; Tuesdays, Madame ; 

Wednesdays, Madame de M ; Thursdays, Monsieur 

G , and so on. There is no preparation of entertain- 

ment ; a few more lights, perhaps a Baba, or cake savouring 
strongly of rum, and a little more tea is provided. Every 
one is welcome, and no one is expected. The visitors may 
come dressed just as they would be at home ; or in full 
toilette, on their way to balls and other gaieties. They go 
without any formal farewell; whence, I suppose, our 
expression “ French leave.” 

Of course the agreeableness of these informal receptions 
depends on many varying circumstances, and I doubt if 
they would answer in England. A certain talent is required 
in the hostess ; and this talent is not kindness of heart, or 
courtesy, or wit, or cleverness, but that wonderful union of 
all these qualities, with a dash of intuition besides, which we 
call tact. Madame Eecamier had it in perfection. Her wit 
or cleverness was of the passive or receptive order ; she 
appreciated much, and originated little. But she had the 
sixth sense, which taught her when to speak, and when to 
be silent. She drew out other people’s powers by her 
judicious interest in what they said ; she came in with 
sweet words before the shadow of a coming discord was 
perceived. It could not have been all art ; it certainly was 
not all nature. As I have said, invitations are not given for 
these evenings. Madame receives on Tuesdays. Any one 
may go. But there are temptations for special persons 
which can be skilfully thrown out. You may say in the 
hearing of one whom you wish to attract, “ I expect M. 
Guizot will be with us on Tuesday ; he is just come back to 
Paris,” — and the bait is pretty sure to take : and of course 
you can vary your fly with your fish. Yet, in spite of all 
experience and all chances, some houses are invariably dull. 
The people who would be dreary at home, go to be dreary 

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French Life 

there. The gay, bright spirits are always elsewhere ; or 
perhaps come in, make their bows to the hostess, glance 
round the room, and quietly vanish. I cannot make out 
why this is ; but so it is. 

But a delightful reception, which will never take place 
again — a more than charming hostess, whose virtues, which 
were the real source of her charms, have ere this “ been 
planted in our Lord’s garden ” — awaited us to-night. In 
this one case I must be allowed to chronicle a name — that 
of Madame de Circourt — so well known, so fondly loved, 
and so deeply respected. Of her accomplished husband, 
still among us, I will for that reason say nothing, excepting 
that it was, to all appearances, the most happy and con- 
genial marriage I have ever seen. Madame de Circourt was 
a Eussian by birth, and possessed that gift for languages 
which is almost a national possession. This was the im- 
mediate means of her obtaining the strong regard and steady 
friendship of so many distinguished men and women of 
different countries. You will find her mentioned as a dear 
and valued friend in several memoirs of the great men of 
the time. I have heard an observant Englishman, well 
qualified to speak, say she was the cleverest woman he ever 
knew. And I have also heard one, who is a saint for goodness, 
speak of Madame de Circourt’s piety and benevolence and 
tender kindness, as unequalled among any women she had 
ever known. I think it is Dekker who speaks of our Saviour 
as “ the first true gentleman that ever lived.” We may 
choose to be shocked at the freedom of expression used by 
the old dramatist : but is it not true ? Is not Christianity 
the very core of the heart of all gracious courtesy ? I am 
sure it was so with Madame de Circourt. There never was 
a house where the weak and dull and humble got such kind 
and unobtrusive attention, or felt so happy and at home. 
There never was a place that I heard of, where learning and 
genius and worth were more truly appreciated, and felt more 
sure of being understood. I have said that I will not speak 
of the living ; but of course every one must perceive that 

643 


French Life 

this state could not have existed without the realisation of 
the old epitaph — 

They were so one, it never could be said 
Which of them ruled, and which of them obeyed. 

There was between them but this one dispute, 

’Twas which the other’s will should execute. 

In the prime of life, in the midst of her healthy relish for 
all social and intellectual pleasures, Madame de Circourt met 
with a terrible accident ; her dress caught fire, she was fear- 
fully burnt, lingered long and long on a sick-bed, and only 
arose from it with nerves and constitution shattered for life. 
Such a trial was enough, both mentally and physically, to 
cause that form of egotism which too often takes possession 
of chronic invalids, and which depresses not only their spirits, 
but the spirits of all who come near them. Madame de 
Circourt was none of these folks. Her sweet smile was 
perhaps a shade less bright ; but it was quite as ready. She 
could not go about to serve those who needed her ; but, un- 
able to move without much assistance, she sat at her writing- 
table, thinking and working for others still. She could never 
again seek out the shy or the slow or the awkward; but, 
with a pretty beckoning movement of her hand, she could 
draw them near her, and make them happy with her gentle 
sensible words. She would no more be seen in gay brilliant 
society ; but she had a very active sympathy with the young 
and the joyful who mingled in it ; could plan their dresses 
for them ; would take pains to obtain a supply of pleasant 
partners at a ball to which a young foreigner was going; 
and only two or three days before her unexpected death — 
for she had suffered patiently for so long that no one knew 
how near the end was — she took much pains to give a great 
pleasure to a young girl of whom she knew very httle, but 
who, I trust, will never forget her. 

I could not help interrupting the course of my diary to 
pay this tribute to Madame de Circourt’s memory. At the 
end of February, 1863, many were startled with a sudden 

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pang of grief. “ Have you heard ? Madame de Circourt is 
dead ! ” “ Dead ! — why, we were at her house not a week 

ago ! ” “ And I had a note from her only two days ago, 

about a poor woman,” &c. And then the cry was “ Oh, her 
poor husband ! who has lived but for her, who has watched 
over her so constantly ! ” 

We were at her house not a fortnight before, and met 
the pretty gay people all dressed out for a Carnival ball at 
the Eussian Embassy. The whole thing looked unreal. 
They came and showed themselves in their brilliant cos- 
tumes, exchanged a witticism or a compliment, and then 
flitted away to exhibit themselves elsewhere, and left the 
room to a few quiet, middle-aged, or quieter people. A lady 
was introduced to me, whose name I recognised, although I 
could not at the moment remember where I had heard it 
before. She looked, as she was, a French Marquise. I 
forget how much her dress was in full costume, but she had 
much the air of a picture of the date of Louis XV. 

After she was gone, I recollected where I had heard the 
name. She was the present lady of Les Eochers, whose 
ancient manor-house we had visited in Britanny the year 
before. Instead of a Parisian drawing-room, full of scented 
air, brilliant with light, through which the gay company of 
high-born revellers had just passed, the bluff of land over- 
looking the Bocage rose before me ; the short sweet turf on 
which we lay fragrant with delicate flowers ; the grey-turretted 
manor-house, with here and there a faint yellow splash of 
colour on the lichen-tinted walls; the pigeons wheeling in 
the air above the high dove-cot; the country- servants in 
their loosely-fitting, much-belaced liveries; and old De la 
Eoux in his blouse, shambling around us, with his horn 
snuff-box and story of ancestral grandeur. I told M. de 
Circourt of our visit to Britanny, and in return he gave me 
the following curious anecdote : — An uncle of his was the 
General commanding the Western district of France in or 
about 1816. He had a Montmorenci for his aide-de-camp ; 
and on one of his tours of inspection the General and aide 

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were guests at Les Eochers. They were to have left their 
hospitable quarters the next day; but in the morning the 
General said to M. de Montmorenci that their host had 
pressed him to remain there another night, which he found, 
on inquiry, would be perfectly convenient for his plans, and 
therefore he had determined to accept the invitation. M. de 
Montmorenci, however, to the General’s surprise, begged to 
be allowed to go and sleep at Vitre ; and, on the General’s 
inquiring what could be his reason for making such a request, 
he said that he had not been properly lodged ; that the bed- 
room assigned to him was not one befitting a Montmorenci. 
“ How so ? ” said the General. “ Did they put you in a 
garret ? Bachelors have often to put up with rough quarters 
when a house is full of visitors.” “No, sir; I was on the 
ground-floor. My room was spacious and good enough; 
but it was that which had once belonged to Madame 
de S^vigne.” 

M. de Montmorenci after he had said this, looked as though 
he had given a full explanation ; but the General was rather 
more perplexed than before. 

“ Well ! and why should you object to sleeping in the 
room which once belonged to Madame Sevigne ? From all 
accounts she was a very pretty, charming woman : and 
certainly she wrote delightful letters.” 

“ Pardon me, sir ; but it appears to me that you forget 
that Madame de Sevign^ was a Jansenist, and that I am 
a Montmorenci, of the family of the first Baron of 
Christendom.” 

The young man was afraid of the contamination of heresy 
that might be lingering in the air of the room. There are 
old rooms in certain houses shut up since the days of the 
Great Plague, which are not to be opened for the world. I 
hope that certain Fellows’ rooms in Balliol may be her- 
metically sealed, when their present occupants leave them, 
lest a worse thing than the plague may infect the place. 

February 21st . — All this evening I have been listening to 
fragmentary recollections of the Eeign of Terror, told us by 

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two ladies of high distinction. One of them said that her 
remembrances of that time would have a peculiar value, as 
she was then only a child of five or six years of age ; and 
could not have attempted at that age to join her fragments 
together by any theory, however wild and improbable. She 
could simply recall what struck on her senses as extraordinary 
and unprecedented. I think the first thing she named was 
her indignation at seeing her mother assume a servant’s 
dress, as she then thought. Evidently it had been con- 
sidered advisable that Madame de should set aside all 

outward sign of superior rank or riches, and put on the 
clothes of what we should now call a “ working- woman.” 

The next thing my friend remembered was the temporary 
absence of her father ; who must have been arrested on sus- 
picion, and, strange to say, in those days, released, but kept 
under strict surveillance. During his absence from home 
all the servants were dismissed, excepting the child’s houTie. 
They lived in an apartment in the Place Vendome, and 
there was grass in the centre of the Place; what we, in 
England, should call a “green,” I should imagine. When 
her father returned home two men came with him. They 

were “ citizens ” told off to keep a watch upon M. de ’s 

movements. The Httle girl looked upon them as rude, vulgar 
men (she was a true little aristocrat, in fact), and wondered 
and chafed at her mother’s trembling civility to these two 
fellows. They sat in the drawing-room, lolled in the best 
satin -cushioned chairs, smoked their pipes ; and the dainty 
mother never upbraided them ! It was very inexplicable. 
Madame cooked the family dinner ; and probably did not do 
it remarkably well, even though she was a Frenchwoman. 
One day, one of the two citizen-guards, finding the idleness 
of his life in the drawing-room wearisome, or seized with a 
fit of good-nature, offered to turn cook. I think it was 
imagined he had been a cook somewhere under the old 
regime. And, after he had found for himself this congenial 
appointment, his fellow-guard offered to knit stockings for 
the family, and to sit in the salle-a-manger, through which 

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every one going in or out of the salon must pass. Either 
he or the cook left whatever they were about to accompany 
Mmsieur le Suspect whenever he made any signs of wanting 
to go out. But altogether, and considering the office they 
held, they were not disobliging inmates, after the first jealousy 
of neglect was soothed. 

Another circumstance which Madame de had 

observed was her mother’s silence and depression of spirits 
at a particular hour. As sure as eleven o’clock drew near, 
the poor lady ceased talking to her little girl, and hstened. 
Then by-and-by came a horrid heavy rumble in the distant 
streets; clearer and clearer it sounded, advancing slowly, 
then turning, and dying away into a sudden stop. This 
ominous noise was the more recognisable because of the 
general silence of Paris streets at that time. The carriage 
of the Prosecutor General, Fouquier-Tinville, was the only 
one that rolled about pretty much as it did in former years ; 
any other was put down for fear lest it might be considered 
a mark of “ aristocracy.” But the diurnal heavy sound, at 
which the poor lady grew pale and crossed herself and prayed, 
was the Charrette, with its daily tale of forty or fifty victims, 
going to the Place Louis XV. From the Place Vendome a 
sort of lane between two dead walls led down to the gardens 
of the Tuileries. These walls bounded the respective gardens 
of the convents of the Feuillants, and the Jacobins, which 
gave their names to the different political parties that met 
in the deserted buildings. Indeed, the iron gate leading into 
the Tuileries Gardens opposite to the end of the Eue Casti- 
glione is still called the Porte des Feuillants. Along this 

dreary walled-in lane Madame de was taken by her 

bonne for a daily walk in the Palace Gardens. I asked 
her how it was that her parents, in sending their child for 
her exercise into these Gardens, did not dread the chance 
of her being shocked by the sights and sounds in the adjoin- 
ing Place Louis XV. She replied that in those days there 
was a row of irregular, unshapely buildings at the further 
end of the Gardens, completely shutting out the Flace, 

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French Life 

Every one about the court who fancied that the erection of 
any edifice would add to his convenience ordered it to be 
built at the end of the Gardens, at the national expense ; and 
thus there was a very sufficient screen between the Gardens 
and the Place. Besides, added her friend, Madame de St. 
A , it was terrible to think how soon people are familiar- 

ised with horror ; terrible in one sense — merciful in another ; 
for elsewise how could persons have kept their senses in 

those days ? She said that her husband, M. de St. A , 

when a boy of ten or twelve, was only saved from being 
shut up with his parents and all the rest of his family in 
the Abbaye by the faithful courage of an old servant, who 
carried the little fellow off to his garret in the Faubourg St. 
Antoine. Of course this was done at the risk of the man’s 
life, harbouring a suspected aristocrat being almost as 
criminal as being an aristocrat yourself. The little lad 
pined in the necessary confinement of his refuge ; the close 
air, the difference of food, the anxiety about his father and 
mother, all told upon his health ; and the man, his protector, 
seeing this, began to cast about him for some amusement 
and relaxation for the boy. So once a week he took the 
boy, well disguised, out for a walk. Where to, do you 
think? To the Place Louis XV., to see the guillotine at 
work on the forty or fifty victims ! The dehcate little boy 
shrank and sickened at the sight ; yet tried to conquer all 
signs of his terror and loathing, partly out of regard to the 
man who had run so much risk in saving him, partly out 
of an instinctive consciousness that in those times of ex- 
citement, and among that impulsive race, his very friend 
and protector might have a sudden irritation against him, 
if he saw the boy’s repugnance to the fearful exhibition, and 
might there and then denounce him as a little enemy to the 
public safety. 

And again, and also to mark the apathy as to life, and 
the wild excitement which people took in witnessing the 

deadly terror and sufferings of others, Madame de St. A 

went on to say that her husband’s family, to the number of 

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six, were imprisoned in the Abbaye, and made part of that 
strange sad company who lived there, and resigned them- 
selves to their fate by keeping up that mockery of the 
society they had enjoyed in happier days: visiting each 
other, carrying on amusements and etiquette with dignity 
and composure; and, when the day’s list of victims was 
read out by the gaoler, bidding farewell to those who still 
bided their time with quiet dignity and composure. One 
morning the gaoler’s daughter, a bonny, good-tempered girl 
of fourteen or fifteen, who was a favourite with all that sad 
company, came instead of her father to read out the list of 
those for whom at that very minute the tumbril was waiting 
outside the gate. Every one of the six members of the St. 

A family were named. It was well ; no one would 

remain in bitter solitude awaiting their day. One after 
another rose up, and bade the remaining company their 
solemn, quiet farewell, and followed the girl out of the 
door into the corridor, through another door, and then she 
stopped; she had not the key of the next. She turned 
round and laughed at those who were following her, with 
the glee of one who had performed a capital practical 
joke. “ Have not you all been well taken in ? Was it not 
a good trick ? Look ! it is only a blank sheet of paper. The 
list has not come yet. You may all go back again ! ” And 
their names, by some good fortune, were never placed on 
the lists ; and the death of Eobespierre set them free. 

The conversation then turned upon the marvel it was 
now to think upon the immunity which Eobespierre seemed 
to enjoy from all chances of 'assassination. There was no 
appearance of precaution in either his dress or his move- 
ments. His hours of going out and coming in were puncti- 
liously regular; his methodical habits known to any one 
who cared to inquire. At a certain time of day he might 
be seen by crowds issuing forth from his house in the Eue 
St. Honore, dressed with the utmost nicety, neither hurried 
in gait, nor casting any suspicious glances around him. His 
secretary, so said my friends, was alive not more than 

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twenty years ago ; living in an apartment in the Quartier 
Latin, which he seldom left for any purpose. He had 
managed to avoid all public notice at the time of his master’s 
death ; and, long after most of those were dead who might 
have recognised him, the old man lived on in the seclusion 
of his rooms; maintaining to the few who cared to visit 
him his belief that Eobespierre was a conscientious, if a 

mistaken, man. Then my friend Madame de took up 

the tale of her childish remembrances, and told us that the 
next thing she remembered clearly was her terror when one 
day, being at the window, she saw a wild mob come dancing 
and raging, shouting, laughing, and yelling into the Place 
Vendome, with red nightcaps on their heads, their shirt- 
sleeves stripped up above the elbows, their hands and arms 
discoloured and red. Her mother, shuddering, drew the 
child away before she saw more; and the two cowered 
together in the farther corner of the room till the infernal 
din died away in the distance. The following summer, or 
so she thought it was — it was hot, bright weather at any 
rate — some order was given, or terrific hint whispered — she 
knew not which ; but her parents and all the inhabitants of 
the houses in the Place had their tables spread in the open 
air, and took their meals al fresco, joined at pleasure by any 
of the Carmagnoles who chanced to be passing by, dressed 
much as those whom I have just mentioned as having so 
terrified the little girl and her mother. This enforced 
hospitality was considered a mark of good citizenship ; and 
woe to those who shrank from such companionship at their 
board I 

March Is/. — To-night, at home, the conversation turned 
upon English and French marriages. As several Frenchmen 
of note who had married English wives were present (and one 
especially, whose mother also was English, and who can use 
either tongue with equal eloquence), the discussion was based 
on tolerably correct knowledge. Most of those present 
objected strongly to the English way of bringing up the 
daughters of wealthy houses in all the luxurious habits of 

651 


French Life 

their fathers’ homes. Their riding- horses, their maids, their 
affluence of amusement ; when, if the question of marriage 
arose — say to a young man of equal birth and education, but 
who had his way to make in the world — the father of the 
young lady could rarely pay any money down. It was even 
doubtful if he could make her an annual allowance ; hardly 
ever one commensurate with the style in which she had been 
accustomed to live. In all probability a younger child’s 
portion would be hers when her father died ; when either the 
two lovers had given up all thoughts of uniting their fates, or 
when perhaps they no longer needed it, having had force of 
character enough to face poverty together, and had won their 
way upwards to competence. The tardy five or ten thousand 
pounds would have been invaluable once, that comes too late 
to many a one ; so they said. They added that the luxurious 
habits of English girls, and the want of due provision for 
them on the part of their fathers, made both children and 
parents anxious and worldly in the matter of wedlock. The 
girls knew that, as soon as their fathers died, they must quit 
their splendid houses, and give up many of those habits 
and ways which had become necessary to them ; and 
their parents knew this likewise; and hence the un- 
womanly search for rich husbands on the part of the 
mothers and daughters, which, as they declared, existed in 
England. 

Now, said our French friends, look at a household in our 
country ; in every rank it is the custom to begin to put by a 
marriage portion for a girl as soon as she is born. A father 
would think he was neglecting a duty, if he failed to do this, 
just as much as if he starved the little creature. Our girls 
are brought up simply ; luxury and extravagance with us 
belong to the married women. When his daughter is 
eighteen or twenty, a good father begins to look about him, 
and inquire the characters of the different young men of his 
acquaintance. He observes them, or his wife does so still 
more efficiently ; and, when they have settled that such a 
youth will suit their daughter, they name the portion they 

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can give their child to the young man’s father or to some 
common friend. In reply, they are possibly informed that 
Monsieur Alphonse’s education has cost so much ; that he is 
now an avocat in a fair way to earn a considerable income, 
but at present unable to marry, unless the young lady can 
contribute her share, not merely her pin-money, but a 
hond-fide share, towards the joint expenses of housekeeping. 
Or he is a son of a man of property — property somewhat 
involved at present ; but, could it be released from embarrass- 
ment by the payment of an immediate sum of money, his 
father would settle a certain present income upon the young 
people ; and so on. My friends said that there was no 
doubt whatever that if, after these preliminary matters of 
business were arranged, either the young man or the girl did 
not entirely like each other on more intimate acquaintance, 
the proposed marriage would fall through in the majority of 
French families, and no undue influence would be employed 
to compel either party into what they disliked. But, in 
general, the girl has never been allowed to be on intimate 
terms with any one, till her parents’ choice steps forward and 
is allowed by them to court her notice. And as for the 
young fellow, it has been easy for him to see enough of the 
young lady to know whether he can fancy her or not, before 
it comes to the point when it is necessary that he should 
take any individually active steps in the affair. 


Ill 


Paris, March 2nd, 1863. 

Staying here in a French family, I get glimpses of life for 
which I am not prepared by any previous reading of French 
romances, or even by former visits to Paris, when I remained 
in an hotel frequented by English, and close to the street 

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French Life 

which seems to belong almost exclusively to them. The 
prevalent English idea of French society is that it is very 
brilliant, thoughtless, and dissipated ; that family life and 
domestic affections are almost unknown, and that the sense 
of religion is confined to mere formalities. Now I will give 
you two glimpses which I have had: one into the more 
serious side of Protestant, the other into the under-current 
of Eoman Catholic life. The friend with whom I am stay- 
ing belongs to a Dizaine, that is to say, she is one of ten 
Protestant ladies, who group themselves into this number 
in order to meet together at regular intervals of time, and 
bring before each other’s consideration any cases of distress 
they may have met with. There are numbers of these 
Dizaines in Paris ; and now as to what I saw of the working 
of this plan. One of their principles is to give as little 
money as possible in the shape of “raw material,” but to 
husband their resources, so as to provide employment by 
small outlays of capital in such cases as they find on inquiry 
to prove deserving. Thus women of very moderate incomes 
find it perfectly agreeable to belong to the same Dizaine as 
the richest lady in the Faubourg St. Germain. But what 
all are expected to render is personal service of some kind ; 
and in these services people of various degrees of health and 
strength can join : the invalid who cannot walk far, or even 
she who is principally confined to the sofa, can think and 
plan and write letters ; the strong can walk, and use bodily 
exertion. They try to raise the condition of one or two 
families at a time — to raise their condition into self-sup- 
porting independence. 

For instance, the Dizaine I am acquainted with had 
brought before their notice the case of a sick shoemaker, 
and found him, upon inquiry, living in a room on the fifth 
floor of one of those high, dark, unclean houses which lie 
behind the eastern end of the Eue Jacob. Up the noisome, 
filthy staircase, — badly-lighted and frequented by most dis- 
reputable people — to the close, squalid room in which the 
man lay bed-ridden, did the visitors from the Dizaine toil. 

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French Life 

He was irritable and savage. I think the English poor are 
generally depressed and sullen under starvation and neglect ; 
but the French are too apt to become fierce even to those 
who would fain help them ; or it might be illness in the case 
of this man. His wife was a poor patient creature, whose 
spirit and intelligence seemed pressed out of her by extreme 
sorrow, and who had neither strength of mind nor body to 
enable her to make more of an effort than to let one of the 
Dizaine know of the case. There were children, too, scrofu- 
lous from bad air and poor living. The medical men say, 
that the diseases arising from this insidious taint are much 
more common in Paris than in London. 

Well, this case was grave matter of consideration for the 
Dizaine ; and the end of the deliberation was this : — One 
lady undertook to go and seek out a lodging in the same 
quarter as that in which the shoemaker lived at present, but 
with more air, more light, and a cleaner, sweeter approach. 
It was a bad neighbourhood, but it was that in which the 
family had taken root ; and it would have occasioned too 
great a wrench from all their previous habits and few precious 
affections, to pull them up by force, and transplant them to 
an entirely different soil. Another lady undertook to seek 
out among her acquaintance for a subscriber to a certain 
sea-bathing charity at Dieppe, who could, give an order to 
the poor little boy who was the worst victim to scrofula. 
An invalid said that, while awaiting this order, she would see 
that some old clothes of her own prosperous child should 
be altered and arranged, so that the little cripple should go 
to Dieppe decently provided. Some one knew a leather 
merchant, and spoke of getting a small stock of leather at 
wholesale prices ; while all these ladies declared they would 
give some employment to the shoemaker himself; and I 
know that they — great ladies as one or two of them were — 
toiled up the noisome staircase, and put their delicate little 
feet up on to the bed where he lay, in order to give him the 
cheerful comfort of employment again. I suppose this was 
disturbing the regular course of labour ; but I do not fancy 

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that cases of this kind are so common as to affect greatly 
the more prosperous tradespeople. The last I heard of this 
shoemaker was, that he was in a (comparatively) healthy 
lodging ; his wife more cheerful, he himself slightly sarcastic 
instead of positively fierce, and, though still bed-ridden, 
managing to earn a tolerable livelihood by making shoes to 
be sold ready-made in the American market ; a piece of 
permanent employment procured for him through the 
instrumentality of the Dizaine. 

Of course these ladies, being human, have their foibles 
and faults. Their meetings are apt to become gossipy, and 
they require the firm handling of some superior woman to 
keep them to the subject and business in hand. Occasional 
bickerings as to the best way of managing a case, or as to 
the case most deserving of immediate assistance, will occur ; 
and may be blamed or ridiculed by those who choose rather 
to see blemishes in execution than to feel righteousness of 
design. The worst that can be said is, that Bizaines (like 
all ladies’ committees I ever knew) are the better for having 
one or two men amongst them. And some of them at 
least are most happy and fortunate in being able to refer 
for counsel and advice to M. Jules Simon, whose deep study 
of the condition of the workwoman (Vouvri'ere) in France, 
and the best remedies to be applied to her besetting evils — 
whose general, wise, and loving knowledge of the life of the 
labouring classes — empower him to judge wisely on the 
various cases submitted to him. 

Now as to my glimpse into Eoman Catholic wisdom and 
goodness in Paris. Not long ago — it is probably still going 
on — there was a regular service held in the crypt under St. 
Sulpice for very poor workmen, immediately after the grand 
(high) mass. It was almost what we should call a “ ragged 
church.” They listened to no regular sermon on abstract 
virtues ; but among them stood the priest, with his crucifix, 
speaking to them in their own homely daily language — 
speaking of brotherly love, of self-sacrifice, like that of which 
he held the symbol in his hands — of the temptations to 

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which they were exposed in their various trades and daily 
lives, using even the technical words, so that every man felt 
as if his own individual soul was being entreated. And 
by-and-by there was a quete for those still poorer, still 
more helpless and desolate than themselves ; many of them 
of course could not give even the sous, or the five-centime 
piece. But after that the priest went round, speaking low 
and softly to each individual, and asking each what effort, 
what sacrifice he could make “ in the name of the Lord.” 
One said, he could sit up with a sick neighbour who needed 
watching in the night ; another offered a day’s wages for the 
keep of the family of the incapacitated man ; the priest 
suggested to a third that he and his wife might take one of 
the noisy httle children to play among their own childreu 
for the day ; another offered to carry out the weekly burden 
of a poor widow. One could not hear all ; it was better that 
such words should be spoken low ; that the left hand should 
not know what the right hand did. But the priests seemed 
always ready with little suggestions which nothing but an 
intimate acquaintance with the lives of these poor men could 
have enabled them to give. 

We are talking of leaving Paris, and going leisurely on 
to Eome. M. de Montalembert was here last night, and 
wrote me down a little detour which he said we could easily 
make, rejoining the railroad at Dijon. 

March 5 th. Avignon . — After all we were not able to 
follow out M. de Montalembert’s instructions, but I shall 
keep his paper (written in English), as the places he desired 
us to visit sound full of interest, and would make a very 
pleasant week’s excursion from Paris at some future time. 

“ Provide yourself with Ed. Joanne’s Guide du Voyagewr. 
Est-et’Mur. 

“ By the Lyons railway to Auxerre (a beautiful city with 
splendid churches). 

“ At Auxerre take the diligence (very bad) to Avallon, a 
very pretty place with fine churches. At Avallon hire a 
vehicle of some sort to Vezelay, only three leagues off ; the 

657 2 u 


French Life 

most splendid Romanesque church in Europe ; and to Chas- 
tellux, a fine old castle belonging to the family of that name, 
from the Crusade of 1147. Returning to Avallon, there is a 
very bad coach to Semur, another very pretty place, with a 
delightful church ; seven or eight leagues off. From Semur 
by omnibus to Montbard, or Les Launes, which are both 
railroad stations. Stop at Dijon, a most interesting city, 
and be sure you see the museum.” 

When M. de Montalembert wrote out his little plan, I 
said something about the name “ Avallon,” “ the Isle of 
Avallon” being in France, instead of Bretagne; but he 
reminded me of the fact that the fragments of the Arthurian 
romances were to be found in one shape or another all over 
the west of Europe, and claimed Avallon as ths place 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. 

Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns. 

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea. 

He said that there is also a Morvan, a For^t de Morvan, in 
the same district. Speaking of the Crusades (apropos of 
the family of de Chastellux, alluded to in the sketch of a 
possible journey which he had drawn out for us), the com- 
pany present fell to talking about the rapid disappearance of 
old French famihes within the last twenty or thirty years ; 
during which time the value for “ long pedigrees ” has greatly 
increased after the fifty years of comparative indifference 
in which they were held. The five Salles des CroisadeSy 
at Versailles were appropriated to the commemoration of 
the events from which they take their names, by Louis- 
Philippe, in 1837 ; previously to which the right of the 
hundred and ninety-three families that claim to be directly 
descended from the Crusaders who went on the three first 
Crusades (from 1106 to 1191 a.d.) was thoroughly examined 
into, and scrutinized by heralds and savants and lawyers 
acquainted with the difficulty of establishing descent, before 
the proud hundred and ninety-three could have their arms 
emblazoned in the first Salles des Croisades. Among them 

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French Life 

rank de Chastellux, de Biron, de Lamballe, de Guerin (any 
ancestor of Eugenie de Guerin, I wonder?) de la Gueche, 
de Rohan, de La Rochefoucauld, de Montalembert, &c. And 
now in 1864 not two-thirds of these families exist in the 
direct male hne ! Yet such has become the value afl&xed to 
these old historical titles and names, that they are claimed 
by collateral relations, by descendants in the female hne — 
nay, even by the purchasers of the lands from which the 
old Crusaders derived the appellations ; and it has even 
become necessary to have an authorised court to judge of 
the rights of those who assume new titles and designations. 
The Montmorencis, indeed, to this day hold a kind of 
“parliament" of their own, and pluck off the plumage of 
any jay who dares to assume their name and armorial bear- 
ings. There is apparently no power of becoming a “ Norfolk 
Howard " at will in France. They spoke as if our English 
nobility was a very modem race in comparison with the 
French ; but assigned the palm of antiquity to the great old 
Belgian families, even in preference to the Austrians, so vain 
of their many quarterings. 

We could not manage to go by Avallon and Dijon, and 
so we came straight on here, and are spending a few days 
in this charming inn; the mistral howhng and whisthng 
without, till we get the idea that the great leafless acacia 
close to the windows of our salon has been convulsed into 
its present twisted form by the agony it must have suffered 
in its youth from the cruel sharpness of this wind. But, 
inside, we are in a lofty salon^ looking into the picturesque 
inn yard, sheltered by a folding screen from the knife-like 
draught of the door; a fire heaped up with blazing logs, 
resting on brass and irons; skins of wild beasts making the floor 
soft and warm for our feet ; old military plans, and bird’s- 
eye views of Avignon, as it was two hundred years ago, 
hanging upon the walls, which are covered with an Indian 
paper ; Eugenie de Guerin to read ; and we do not care for 
the mistral, and are well content to be in our present quarters 
for a few days. 


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French Life 

Ma/rch Sth. — It was all very well to huddle ourselves up 
in in-doors comfort for a day or two ; but, after that, we 
longed to go out in spite of the terrible mistral. We certainly 
found Avignon “ cam vento fastidioso ; ” and began to wish 
that we had delayed our progress by stopping at Avallon, if 
that indeed was the place “ where never wind blows loudly.” 
So on the day but one after our arrival here, we happed and 
wrapped ourselves up tightly and well, and sailed out of the 
court-yard. We were taken and seized in a moment by the 
tyrant ; all we could do was to shut our eyes, and keep our 
ground, and wonder where our petticoats were. Going 
across the bridge was impossible ; even the passers-by 
warned us against the attempt ; but, after we had caught our 
breath again, we turned and went slowly up the narrow 
streets, choosing those that offered us the most shelter, until 
we had reached the wide space in front of the Palace of 
the Popes. With slow perseverance we made our way from 
point to point, and at length came to a corner in the massive 
walls where we could rest and look about us. Up above our 
heads rose the enormous walls — the far-extending shadow 
of Eome; for never did the French build such a mighty 
structure ; it seemed hke a growth of the solid rock itself. 
The prettiness of the garden round the base of the Palace 
looked to us mean and out of place, with its tidy flower-beds 
and low shrubs. All entrance to the Palace was forbidden ; 
it is now a prison. 

We went into the cathedral, and the calm atmosphere 
was so soothing and delightful, that we were inclined to 
stop there till the mistral had ceased blowing ; but, as that 
might not be for a month or six weeks, on second thoughts 
we believed it would be better to return to our hotel. We 
stood for a few minutes on the cathedral-steps, looking at 
the magnificent view before us, and only regretting the 
clouds of fine dust, which from time to time were whirled 
over the landscape. Close to us rose the colossal walls of 
the Palace ; before us, in the centre of the open space, there 
was a bronze statue of a man dressed in Eastern robes ; and 

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we asked whom it represented — what saint ? what martyr ? 
It was that of the Persian Jean Althen, the Persian who 
first introduced the culture of madder into the South of 
France. His father had held high office under Thomas 
Koulikhan, but was involved in the fall of his master, and 
his son fled for protection to the French Consul of Smyrna. 
It was forbidden under penalty of death to carry the seed 
of the madder-plant out of the district ; but Althen managed 
to bring some of it to Marseilles, and thus originated the 
cultivation of madder in le Comtat ; the profits of which to 
the inhabitants may be imagined from the fact that the 
revenue from this source in one department alone (Vaucluse) 
amounts annually to more than fifteen millions of francs. 
Althen and his daughter died in poverty ; but of late years 
the statue which we saw in the Place Eocher des Dorns, 
has been erected to the Persian unbeliever, right opposite to 
the cathedral and the Palace of the Popes — where once 
John XXII. (that most infamous believer) lived. I had 
often seen madder in England, in the shape of a dirty brown 
powder — the roots ground down ; it has a sweetish taste, and 
the workmen in calico print-works will not unfrequently take 
a little in their hands as they pass the large bales, and put 
it into their mouths. I had heard a young English philan- 
thropist say that he had often entertained thoughts of buying 
a tract of land in Eastern Italy ^ and introducing the cultiva- 
tion of madder there, as a means of raising the condition of 
the people ; but I had never heard of Jean Althen before, 
and, tempestuous as it was, I made my way up to the statue, 
so that I could look up at the calm, sad face of the poor 
Persian. I suppose the newly discovered Aniline dyes may 
uproot the commerce he established; at some future period ; 
but he did a good work in his day, of which no man knew 
the value while he lived. Our kind landlady at the Hotel 
de TEurope was at the hall-door to greet us on our return, 
and warned us with some anxiety against going out in the 
mistral; we were not acclimatised, she said; the English 
families resident in Avignon did not suffer, because they had 

66 1 


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been there so long. Of course we asked questions as to 
these English families, and heard that some had resided in 
the city for two or three generations ; all engaged in the 
commerce de la garance ; so they too had cause to bless the 
memory of Jean Althen. 

March 12th . — I suppose our landlady thought she would 
keep us prudent and patient indoors, until we receive the 
telegram from Marseilles announcing that it is safe for the 
boats to Civita Vecchia to start — hitherto they have been 
delayed by this horrid mistral — for she has brought us in a 
good number of books, most of them topographical, but one 
or two relating to the legends or history of the district. We 
are very content to be in the house to-day ; the wind is 
blowing worse than ever ; Irene has a bad pain in her side, 
which we suppose must be a local complaint ; for, after 
trying to cure it by mustard plaisters, she sent our maid out 
at last to get a blister of a particular size, but without 
naming what part required the application ; and the druggist 
immediately said, “ Ah, for the side ! it will last while the 
mistral lasts ; or till she leaves Avignon ! ” We are learning 
how to manage wood-fires; the man who waits upon us, 
and is chambermaid as well as footman, gave us a little 
lesson yesterday. Always rake the living ashes to the front, 
and lay on the fresh wood behind ; those are his directions, 
and hitherto they have answered well. This old man is a 
Pole, and came, an exile, to be a servant in the hotel about 
thirty years ago. He likes talking to us ; but his language 
is very difficult to understand, though we can quite make out 
the soft, satiny patois of the South of France, the Proven 9 al 
dialect, in which our questions are answered in the streets. 

To-night he has brought in our lamp and cleared away 
our the simple. Mary is sitting by the fire, tempted sorely 
by the wood logs ; for every stroke of the sharp, thin poker 
brings out springing fountains of lovely sparkles. I, having 
a frugal mind, exclaim at her; for we pay heavily for 
our basketful of wood ; but she, in a pleading, coaxing way, 
calls my attention to the brilliant effect of her work, and I 

662 


French Life 

cannot help watching the bright little lives which one by one 
vanish, till at length a poor solitary spark runs about vainly 
to find its companions, and then dies out itself. It reminds 
me of a story I heard long ago in Eamsay, in the Isle of 
Man ; — and here I think of it at Avignon ! We were ques- 
tioning a fisherman’s wife at Eamsay about the Manthe 
Doog of Peel Castle, in which she had a firm belief ; and 
from this talk we passed on to fairies. “ Are there any in 
the island now ? ” I asked, gravely, of course, for it was a 
grave and serious subject with her. “ None now ; none 
now,” she replied. “ My brother saw the last that ever was 
in the island. He was making a short cut in the hills above 
Kirk Maughold, and came down on a green hollow, such as 
there are on the hill-tops, just green all round, and the blue 
sky above, and as still as still can be, but for the larks. He 
heard the larks singing up above ; but this time he heard a 
little piping cry out of the ground ; so he looked about him 
everywhere, and followed the sound of the cry; and at 
length he came to a dip in the grass, and there lay a fairy 
ever so weak and small, crying sadly. ‘ Oh ! ’ she said, when 
she saw him, * you are none of my own people ; I thought 
perhaps they had come back for me: but they’ve left me 
here alone, and all gone away, and I am faint and weak, 
and could not go with them ; ’ and she began to cry again. 
So he meant it well, and he thought he’d carry her home to 
be a plaything to his children ; it would have been better 
than lying there playing alone in the damp grass : so he 
tried to catch her ; but somehow — he had big hands, had my 
brother, and an awkward horny way of holding things ; and 
fairies is as tickle to handle as butterflies ; and when he had 
caught her, and she lay very still, he thought he might open 
his hand after a time, and tell her he was doing it all for her 
good ; but she was just crushed to death, poor thing ! So, 
as he said, there was no use bringing her home in that state ; 
and he threw her away ; and that was the end of the last 
fairy I ever heard of in the island.” The last sparks in the 
wooden logs at Avignon were my last fairies. 

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French Life 

Among our hostess’s books was the authorised report of 
the trial for the murder of Madame la Marquise de Gange. 
It is so interesting, and has so strong a local flavour, that we 
are determined, blow high, blow low, to go over to Ville- 
Neuve to-morrow, and see her portrait by Mignard in the 
Eglise de I’Hopital at Ville-Neuve. She lived in the seven- 
teenth century, and was the daughter of a certain Sieur de 
Eossau, a gentleman of Avignon, who had married an heiress, 
the daughter of Joanis Sieur de Nocheres. Her father died 
when she was very young ; and she and her mother went to 
live with the Sieur de Nocheres, probably in one of the large 
gloomy houses in the narrow old streets we have passed 
through to-day, with no windows on the lower floor, only 
strongly-barred gratings ; they are almost like fortified dwell- 
ings — which, indeed, the state of affairs at the time they 
were built required them to be. The little girl promised to 
be a great beauty, and had besides a dowry of 500,000 livres ; 
and it was no great wonder that all the well-born young men 
of Provence (and some who were not young, too), came a-woo- 
ing to the grand-daughter of the rich old burgess of Avignon. 
But where force was so often employed as a method of 
courtship, and at a time when obstacles to success (in the 
way of fathers or mothers or obstinate relations) were so 
easily got rid of by determined suitors, it was thought better 
to arrange an early marriage for the little girl, who was 
called Mademoiselle de Chateaublanc, after one of the estates 
of her grandfather; and, accordingly, she was espoused in 
1649, at the age of thirteen, by the Marquis de Castellane, 
grandson of the Due de Villars. Her husband is described 
as being as charming as his bride. He was handsome and 
sweet-tempered, besides being a scion of a great French 
house. He took his lovely little bride to Paris, where she 
was the admired of all beholders at the court of the young 
King Louis XIV. His boyish majesty was struck with her 
rare beauty, and conferred on her the honour of dancing 
with her in a court ballet ; and the docile courtiers followed 
his lead, and christened her “ La belle Froven^ale” by which 

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French Life 

name she was thereafter better known than by her legitimate 
title of Marquise de Castellane. 

When first she came to town 
They ca’ed her Jess MacFarlane, 

But, now she’s come and gone, 

They ca’ her The Wandering Darling. 

Poor young Belle Proven 9 ale ! admired by the King of 
France and all his men ; living a bright, happy life of inno- 
cent pleasure in Paris ; with a charming husband, by whom 
she was passionately beloved, and whose affection she fondly 
esteemed ; rich, lovely, and of high rank — how httle she 
could have anticipated her rapid descent from the pinnacle 
of good fortune ! Her first deep grief was the loss of her 
husband. He was drowned off the coast of Sicily ; and she 
came back from the gay life of Paris to mourn him deeply 
in the austere home of her grandfather, in the city of 
Avignon. The only change she sought for in these years of 
mourning was to go into retreat in the convent at Ville- 
Neuve — the village we saw on the opposite side of the 
Ehone, the other day, when we stood on the cathedral steps. 
The account of her sorrow and regret at the death of her 
young husband is evidently so truthful and sincere that one 
almost wonders at her marrying again ; but I suppose in 
those days a bourgeois grandfather and a widowed mother 
were considered but poor protectors for a beautiful young 
woman of great wealth. 

At any rate, I read of her having, at length, selected from 
among many suitors the Sieur de Lanide, Marquis de Gauge, 
Baron du Languedoc, Gouverneur de St. Andre, to be her 
second husband. She was married to him in 1658, when 
he was twenty, and she twenty-two years of age. He was 
as beautiful as she was, but of a violent and ferocious 
character. For the first few months after their marriage 
he appeared to be devoted to her ; but, by-and-by, he grew 
both weary of her society and suspiciously jealous of all her 
former friends. It was rather a lonely life now for the poor 
lady, shut up in her husband’s Chateau de Gauge, while 

665 


French Life 

he went about enjoying himself in provincial society, and 
occasionally visiting Paris, where once she had been so 
sought after and cherished. Still there is no account of 
her ever having repined at this seclusion; of course, the 
official reports of events begin at a much later period. Things 
went on in this way between the husband and wife for some 
time without any change. Then two of his brothers, the 
Abbe and the Chevalier de Gange, came to live at the 
Chateau de Gange; and a short time afterwards her old 
grandfather the Sieur de Nocheres died, leaving Madame 
de Gange his heiress. The Marquis, her husband, was 
much occupied in looking after the various estates to which 
his wife had succeeded under her grandfather’s will. Gange 
is seven leagues from Montpellier, and nineteen from Avig- 
non, in a lonely, wild district ; the chateau was the principal 
house in a small village, the inhabitants of which were 
dependants of the Marquis. But, for some little time after 
the Sieur de Nocheres’ death, it was necessary for his heiress 
to be in Avignon ; and, whether it was, as the rumoin: went 
at the time, that she had reason to suspect that a cream 
which, one day at her mother’s table, her husband pressed 
her much to eat was poisoned with arsenic, or whether she 
remembered the horoscope drawn for her in Paris which 
predicted that she should die a violent death, or whether, as 
is most likely, her seven or eight years’ knowledge of her 
husband’s character made her fearful and suspicious, it is 
certain that before leaving Avignon at this time, she made 
a singular will, which was attested with all possible legal 
forms, to this effect. Her mother was to be her sole heir, 
with power to leave all the property after her death to either 
of the children which Madame de Gange had had by her 
second husband ; the boy was six, the girl five years old at 
this time, and they were living with their grandmother at 
Avignon. Although this will was executed in secret, she 
made a solemn declaration before the magistrates of Avignon 
to the effect that, though she might be compelled to make a 
subsequent will, this and this alone was valid. 

666 


French Life 

Poor lady ! she had but too much reason to dread the 
time when she would be obliged to return to the lonely 
chateau, far away from her friends, in the power of a cruel 
and negligent husband, who hungered after the uncontrolled 
and unincumbered possession of her fortune, and who might 
leave her again, as he had done before, exposed to the pro- 
fligate and insolent solicitations of the Abbe, the cleverest of 
the three brothers, who had already traded on her misery at 
her husband’s neglect and ill-concealed dislike of her, by 
saying that, if his sister-in-law would accede to his wishes, 
he would bring her back her husband’s affection. The 
Chevaher seems to have been a brutal fool, under the influ- 
ence of his clever brother, the Abbe. In the interval between 
her grandfather’s death and her return to the Chateau de 
Gauge, these three brothers veiled their designs under an 
appearance of the greatest complaisance to Madame de 
Gauge. But all their seeming attention and consideration, 
all her husband’s words and acts of lover-like devotion, 
ended in this question — How soon would she go back to the 
Chateau de Gauge ? Avignon was unhealthy in hot weather, 
while the autumn, the vintage-season, was exquisite at the 
chateau. At length, wearied out with their urgency, and 
dreading the consequences of too persistent a refusal, she 
left Avignon for La Gauge. But, first, she gave the sum of 
twenty pistoles to different convents, to say masses for her 
soul, in case of her dying suddenly without extreme unction. 
It gives one an awful idea of the state of society in those 
days (reign of Charles II. in England), to think of this help- 
less young woman, possessed by a too well-founded dread, 
yet not knowing of any power to which she could appeal for 
protection, and obliged to leave the poor safety of a city to 
go to a lonely house, where those who wished her evil would 
be able to work their will. 

At the Chateau de Gauge she found the two brothers-in- 
law, who had returned from Avignon a few days previously, 
and her mother-in-law, a good, kind woman, to whose pre- 
sence one fancies the young Marquise must have clung. 

667 


French Life 

But the Dowager Marquise habitually lived at Montpellier, 
and she returned there soon after the Marquise’s arrival. 
While the old lady had remained in the chateau, all had gone 
on well ; but on her departure the Marquis set off back to 
Avignon, leaving instructions to his brothers to coax his wife 
into making another will. They performed their work skil- 
fully ; they told her there could be no perfect reconciliation 
with her husband, until she had shown full confidence in 
him by bequeathing him all her property in case of her 
death. For the sake of peace, and remembering her secret 
testament at Avignon, she agreed to their wishes ; and a will, 
leaving all her property unconditionally to her husband, was 
made at the Chateau de Gange. It was short-sighted of the 
poor lady, if she valued her life. They at any rate did not 
value it ; and now, the sooner they got rid of her the better. 
So much is stated in the report of the trial on authority, 
which seems to have satisfied the judges at the time. For 
the further events, there is the direct testimony of the Mar- 
quise on her death-bed and of other witnesses ; and there 
are curious glimpses of the manners of the period, as well as 
of the state of society. 

The dramatis pers(mce were disposed of as follows, on the 
17th of May, 1667 : — The mother of these three wicked sons 
— the Marquis, the Abbe, and the Chevalier de Gange — was 
at her house in Montpellier ; the Marquis himself was tarry- 
ing in the neighbourhood of Avignon, ostensibly employed 
in looking after the estates of his wife ; she was at the 
chateau in the lonely village, keeping up the farce of friendly 
politeness with her brothers-in-law, whom she dreaded inex- 
pressibly. There was a chaplain in the house, who was 
their tool, as she well knew ; and a few neighbours from the 
village came to see her from time to time, the wives of the 
Intendant and of the Huguenot minister ; worthy and kind- 
hearted women, as will be proved, though not of the class of 
society to which she had been accustomed in the happy 
days in Paris. On the 17th of May, she required some 
medicine, and sent for a draught to the village doctor. 

668 


French Life 

When it came, it was so black and nasty that she took 
some physic which she had ready in her chamber instead, 
and threw the draught away. A pig which licked up the 
draught died that same day. She was not well, and stopped 
in bed for the whole morning ; but in the afternoon, finding 
it rather dull, she sent for two or three of the good women 
of the neighbourhood to come and keep her company, and 
ordered a collation to be served to her friends in her bed- 
room. Her indisposition, whatever it was, does not seem 
to have affected her appetite ; for she deposed that she ate 
a great deal, and to that fact she attributes her safety from 
one way of attacking her life. 

The Abbe and the Chevalier, hearing of their sister-in- 
law's party, and the entertainment that was going on, came 
into the chamber uninvited, and made themselves very 
agreeable. By-and-by, the neighbours went away; it was 
still early in the afternoon; and the Abbe and Chevalier 
accompanied the good ladies to the great hall, and Madame 
was left alone in bed. Presently back came the Abbe, with 
a terrible face ; he brought a pistol, a sword, and a cup of 
poison — a greater choice of deaths than that offered to Fair 
Eosamond; but, all the same, the Marquise must die by 
either fire, steel, or poison. With quick presence of mind 
she chose to drink the latter ; and after doing so, she turned 
round as in writhing agony, and spat out the contents of her 
mouth into the pillow. Her skin was blackened by the 
burning drops that fell upon it, and her mouth was horribly 
burnt ; and no wonder, for the deposition says that the drink 
was made of arsenic and corrosive sublimate, mixed up in 
aqua-fortis. There was evidently no idea of doing things by 
halves in those days I She left the thick part of the liquid in 
the bottom of the glass ; but the Chevalier, who by this time 
had come up to see if he could render himself useful in the 
business, stirred up the sediment and made her drink it. 
Then she begged hard to have a priest to shrive her soul ; 
and, as they felt pretty secure that no help could now avail 
her, they went away, and sent the household chaplain, le 

669 


French Life 

Pretre Perrette, who was also cure of the village, to give 
her what spiritual aid he could. He had lived in the de 
Gange family for five-and-twenty years, and was ready to 
connive at any wickedness which they might plan. 

Now, while they went to find this worthy chaplain, the 
poor lady was left alone in her bed-chamber, and looked 
about for means of escape. There was none, except jumping 
from the window into the great enclosed court-yard, twenty 
feet below, and all paved with flags ; but that risk was better 
than remaining where she was ; so she took courage, and 
was on the point of throwing herself out, when Perrette, the 
chaplain, came in with the viaticum. He ran to the window, 
and tried to pluck her back; but the petticoat which he 
caught hold of gave way, and only a fragment of it remained 
in his hand. She was down below, pushing her long black 
hair down her throat, and thus, with wonderful presence of 
mind, trying to make herself sick ; in which attempt she 
succeeded. Then she went round the court-yard, trying all 
the doors with trembling haste : but they were all locked ; 
and that wicked chaplain in the chateau above was hastening 
to find the relentless brothers- in-law and to tell them of her 
escape. She ran round and round the enclosure, beating 
and striving at the doors ; and at length a groom came out 
of the stables which were at one end of the yard, whom 
she implored to let her out by the stable-door into the street 
or road ; saying she had swallowed some poison by mistake, 
and must find an antidote without loss of time. 

When she was once out of the accursed premises, she 
went to the house of the Sieur des Prats, who lived in the 
village. He was absent; but many of the good women of 
the place were assembled there on a visit to his wife. We 
may judge of the rank of the company by the fact that, in 
the depositions, all the married women are called Made- 
moiselle” e.g.y “ Mademoiselle Brunei, wife of the Huguenot 
minister,” &c. ; and in the Traite sur la rmniere d'Ecrire des 
Lettres, par Grimarest, 1667, the rules for the addresses to 
letters are these : — If a letter is to a lady of quality, she is 

670 


French Life 

to be called “ Madame ” in the address, and the letter is to 
be tied up with silk, and sealed with three seals; if the 
correspondent is only la femme d'un gentilhome, her titles on 
the superscription must be ^'Mademoiselle Mademoiselle^'* so 
and so ; but if she is merely the wife of a bourgeois, simple 
“ Mademoiselle ” is all that is to be accorded to her. 

Now all the ladies assembled at the Sieur des Prats were 
Mademoiselles; but they were brave women, as we shall 
see. In amongst this peaceful company, enjoying an after- 
noon’s gossip, burst the lady of the Chateau de Gauge ; her 
dress (that which she had worn in bed) tom and disordered ; 
her hair hanging about her ; her face in all probability hvid 
with mortal terror and the effects of the fierce poison. She 
had hardly had time to give any explanation of her appear- 
ance, when the Chevalier de Gauge rushed into the room in 
search of his half-killed victim; the Abbe remained below, 
guarding the door of the house. The Chevaher walked up 
and down the room, saying that Madame was mad; that 
she must return with him, and uttering angry menaces. 
While his back was turned. Mademoiselle Bmnel, wife of 
the Huguenot minister of the village, gave Madame de 
Gauge small pieces of orvietan out of a box which she 
carried in her pocket. Orvietan, be it remembered, was 
considered a sovereign remedy against all kinds of poisons ; 
and the fact of the minister’s wife carrying this antidote 
about in her pocket, wherever she went, tells a good deal as 
to the insecurity of life at that period. Madame de Gauge 
managed to swallow a number of pieces of orvietan, un- 
perceived by the Chevalier ; but when one of the ladies, pity- 
ing her burning thirst, went and brought her a glass of water, 
he perceived the kindness, and broke out afresh, dashing the 
glass from Madame’s mouth, and bidding all present to leave 
the room instantly, as he did not like witnesses to his sister- 
in-law’s madness. He drove them out, indeed, but they only 
went as far as the next room, where they huddled together 
in affright, wondering what they could do for the poor lady. 
She, meanwhile, begged for mercy in the most touching 

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French Life 

manner ; she promised that she would forgive all, if he would 
but spare her life : but at these words he ran at her with his 
sword ; holding it short, so that it could serve him as a 
dagger and give the surer stabs. She ran to the door, and 
clung to it, crying out afresh for pity, for mercy, for help. 
He stabbed her five times before his weapon broke in her 
shoulder. 

Then the ladies burst in to the assistance of Madame, 
who was lying on the floor bathed in blood. Some ran to 
her help ; others called through the window to the passers-by 
to fetch the surgeon quickly. Hearing their cry through 
the window, the Abbe came up ; and, finding his sister-in-law 
not yet dead, he began to hit her with the butt- end of his 
pistol, till brave Mademoiselle Brunei caught hold of his 
arm, and hung all her weight upon it. He struck her over 
and over again, to make her let go ; but she would not ; and 
all the women flew upon him “ like lionesses,” and dragged 
him by main force out of the house, and turned him into 
the village-street. One of the ladies, who was skilled in 
surgery, returned to the room where Madame de Gange lay ; 
and at her desire she put her knee against the wounded 
shoulder of Madame, and pulled out the broken point of 
the sword by main force. Then she staunched the blood, 
and bound up the wounds. The Chevalier had been in too 
blind a passion, apparently, to think of stabbing any vital 
part ; and, in spite of poison, and the heavy fall on the 
paved court-yard, and the five stabs, there seemed yet a 
chance for Madame de Gange’s life. That long and terrible 
May afternoon was now drawing to a close ; and the Abbe 
and the Chevalier thought it well to take advantage of the 
coming darkness to ride off to Auberas, an estate of their 
brother’s, about a league from La Gange. There they 
quarrelled with each other, because their work was left 
incomplete, and were on the point of fighting, when it 
seems as if they thought it better to take again to flight. 
After the steed was stolen, every one bethought him of 
locking the stable door. The “ consuls ”, as the magistrates 

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of the district were called, came to offer their services to 
Madame de Gange, who was lying between life and death. 
The neighbouring barons paid her visits of condolence ; one 
of them was practical enough to think of securing the 
assassins ; but two or three days had then elapsed, and the 
Abbe and Chevalier had embarked at Ogde, a small port on 
the Mediterranean. 

Her husband, the Marquis, took the affair very coolly. 
He heard of it at Avignon one morning; but he did not 
mention it to any friends whom he met in the street, nor 
did he set off to see his wife till the afternoon of the follow- 
ing day. But he had the will, which his wife had been 
compelled to make at La Gange, safe with him at Avignon ; 
and before he left the city, he went to see the Vice-Legate, 
with a view to this document, by which his wife bequeathed 
him all in case of her death. The Vice-Legate refused to 
recognise it, and then first informed him of the will by which 
Madame de Gange had left her property to her mother, and 
which rendered null any testament made after that date. 
The Marquis was not induced by this information to be 
more tender towards his poor wounded wife. He found her 
lying at the house of the Sieur des Prats, in the most 
dangerous state. At first she reproached him a httle for 
leaving her at the mercy of his brothers ; but almost directly 
she begged his pardon for what she had said, and was most 
tender and sweet in her conversation with him. He thought 
he could take advantage of her gentle frame of mind, and 
urged her to revoke her declaration about the perpetual 
legality of the Avignon will ; but his pertinacity on this 
point at such a time opened her eyes, and henceforward 
she had no hope of touching his stony heart. Her mother, 
Madame de Eopace, came to see her ; but she was so dis- 
gusted at seeing the Marquis’s pretended affection and as- 
sumption of watchful care over his wife, that she left at the 
close of three days. It was evident now to all that the end 
was drawing near ; the wounds did not touch life, but enough 
of the poison had been swallowed to destroy any constitution. 

673 2 X 


French Life 

Madame de Gange begged to have the extreme unction 
administered ; but the monks in attendance said that, before 
that could be done, she must forgive all her enemies. She 
was too gentle to harbour revenge ; but when Perrette, the 
chaplain, and the accomplice of her assassins, came in his 
sacred vestments to administer the last sacrament, it did 
cost her a severe struggle to receive the wafer from his 
hands. But she forgave him, too, as completely as the 
rest ; and, fearing that her little son might at some future 
time think it his duty to avenge her death, she sent for 
him, and tried to make him understand the Christian duty 
of forgiveness. Meanwhile, the report of her assassination 
had spread far and wide, and the Parhament of Toulouse 
despatched Monsieur de Catelan to La Gange to take her 
evidence as that of a dying woman. When he first came, 
she was in a state of stupor ; but the next day she rallied 
and saw him alone. A fresh terror had seized upon her, 
and she believed herself not safe at La Gange, and entreated 
him to take her to Montpellier ; but it was too late then, 
and in the afternoon she died, nineteen days after the attack 
upon her life. 

Monsieur de Gange now became alarmed, and pretended 
to be in the deepest distress, and that his grief could only be 
alleviated by the discovery and punishment of the murderers 
of his dear wife. But the unmoved M. de Catelan arrested 
him, and took the charge of prosecution and punishment for 
the crime upon himself, in the name of the Parliament of 
Toulouse. The effects of the Marquis were sealed up, and 
he was to be conveyed to the prison at Montpellier ; but he 
could not arrive there before night for some reason ; and 
the inhabitants of the town illuminated it in order that the 
populace might see the face of the accused criminal, as he 
came slowly up the street. The ladies of Avignon, and 
those of Montpellier, put on mourning for the murdered 
Madame de Gange, as if she had been a near relation. Her 
mother, of whom we hear very little until now, led the 
chorus of feminine indignation. She vowed vengeance 

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against the Marquis, and swore that she would pursue him 
through every court of justice in the kingdom, till her 
daughter was avenged. She published a pamphlet on the 
case, to which M. de Gange replied, saying that her state- 
ments were all based on presumption. But the stern hand 
of the law was upon him, and from it he could not so easily 
escape. M. de Catelan twice interrogated the Marquis, the 
last time for eleven hours ; the basis on which he founded 
his questions being not “presumptions,” but the evidence 
which the lawyer had obtained from the dying Madame de 
Gange in that interview which they two had had alone. On 
the 21st of August, 1667, judgment was given through the 
mouth of the President of the Parliament of Toulouse. It 
was always supposed by the public that the powerful rela- 
tions of the Marquis had used unfair means to mitigate the 
severity of the sentence. But it was severe enough, if only 
it had been carried into execution. The Abbe and the 
Chevalier de Gange were to be broken alive upon the wheel. 
The Marquis was to be banished for life, to be degraded 
from his rank, and to have all his lands, goods, and property 
confiscated to the use of the king. The chaplain, Perrette, 
was to be deprived of ecclesiastical orders, and to become a 
galley-slave for life. 

The ladies of Avignon and Montpellier were indignant 
that the Marquis de Gange was not to be broken on the 
wheel as well as his brothers. But where were these three 
guilty men ? The Abb4 and the Chevalier had escaped by 
sea, months ago ; and now the Marquis had made his way 
out of the prison of Toulouse ; prison doors, in those days, 
had a fatal facility in opening before rank or wealth. The 
Marquis and the Chevalier met in Venice — escaped felons as 
they were. But they took service for the Bepublic j and, 
being good Christians, they went to fight the heathen Turks 
in Candia, where they met an honourable death in 1669. 
The Abbe, superior in intellect to the others, lived a longer 
and more eventful life. He fled into Holland, and after 
some wanderings about he met with an old acquaintance, 

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who was unscrupulous, or perhaps was ignorant of his crime, 
and who introduced him to the Count de la Lippe, sovereign 
prince of Viane, about two leagues from Utrecht. To him 
the Abbe de Gauge was presented as the Sieur de la 
Martelliere, a Frenchman of extraordinary learning and 
merit, of the Huguenot or Protestant religion, who was 
consequently under social disadvantages in his own country. 
The Count was pleased with the appearance and manners 
of the so-called Sieur de la Martelliere, and appointed him 
governor, or tutor, to his son, a little boy of nine or ten 
years old. 

But by-and-by the persecution of the French Huguenots 
began, and hundreds of them were leaving France, some one 
of whom might recognise the former Abbe de Gauge, in the 
Protestant Sieur de la Martelliere ; so he opposed the 
settlement of French refugees in the neighbourhood of Viane 
on purely political reasons. He had been governor to the 
son of the Count de la Lippe for several years, when he fell 
desperately in love with a beautiful young girl, a distant 
relation of the Countess’s, who lived with her. His poverty 
and his dependent position were no obstacles to his marriage 
with the lovely portionless maiden ; but the obscurity of his 
supposed birth made a marriage between them impossible. 
He presumed on his services to the Count, and on the years 
of moral conduct which he had passed under the Count’s 
own eyes. He wrote an eloquent letter, in which he con- 
fessed himself to be that Abbe de Gauge for whom the 
kingdom of France had been ransacked in vain; pleading 
false witness, perjury, passion, whatever you will, in extenua- 
tion of the crime of which he was accused ; but proving his 
sixteen quarterings through it all. He spoke of his many 
years’ life of pure morahty, such as the Count de la Lippe 
himself could bear witness to ; of his conversion to the faith 
which the sovereign Prince of Viane held himself, and of 
his zeal in its interests : had he not advised the Huguenot 
refugees not to tarry where the long arm of France might 
reach them, but to fly further east ? 

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French Life 

His eloquence was all in vain. The Count de la Lippe 
seems to have been shocked beyond measure at finding out 
that in the tutor of his little boy — his growing lad — he had 
been harbouring the profligate, terrible, and infamous Abb6 
de Gauge, with whose crimes all civilised Europe had been 
made acquainted. The Sieur de la Martelliere was ordered 
to leave the dominions of the Count de la Lippe without 
delay. He went to Amsterdam, and thither also, without 
delay, the young girl — the poor, pretty relation of Madame 
la Comtesse — followed him, and became his wife. His 
pupil, the young Count, now growing up to manhood, 
although told by his father what an infamous criminal he 
had had for tutor, persevered in sending help to the Sieur de 
la Martelliere and his wife at Amsterdam; until some un- 
expected fortune from one of Madame’s relations put them 
at ease, as far as regarded money. M. de la Martelliere bore 
so high a character that he was admitted into the Consistory 
of Protestants at Amsterdam. But, wherever he went — at 
church or at synod, in market or alone with his wife in their 
most humble secret privacy, he was haunted by the face of 
Madame de Gange. That was said at the time; that is 
believed still. 

The poor lady’s daughter did not do her much credit, and 
I will say nothing about her. The son, whom she had taught 
forgiveness on her death-bed, became a captain of dragoons ; 
and, when at Metz, suppressing the Huguenots (perhaps he 
had never been told of Mademoiselle Brunei, and how she 
had helped and defended his mother in her great strait), he fell 
in love with the beautiful wife of a goldsmith. The dragoons 
were billeted at her house, and tried to force her, at the point 
of the bayonet, to go to mass. Apparently, her religion was 
dearer to her than her virtue ; for she sent for the captain, 
and said to him : — “ Monsieur, vous m'avez dit que vous m'airmz ; 
vmilez-vems me le prauver ? donnez-moi les moyens de sortir du 
royaume ; et pour recompense de ce service, que votre amour sHmagine 
le prix.** ** Non, Madame,'' said the Marquis, “/e ne me pre- 
vaudrai point de votre situation ; je serais au comble de mes voeuz si 

677 


French Life 

vous accordiez a ma tendresse ce que je pourrais obtenir oil vous eteSy 
mais je me reprocherais toufe ma vie d’ abuser de votre Hat ; je vais 
vous en delivrer ; je ne vous demande pour recompense que la grace 
de penser quelquefois d moi." After that, he sent her secretly 
across the frontier. 

I shut up my landlady’s books, and prepared to go to 
bed. I am alone in the lofty salon, which was perhaps in 
existence when Madame de Gange used to reside in Avignon ; 
the fire is gone out, the lamp flickers. The ever-persistent 
wind is tearing round the house. Mary and Irene are fast 
asleep in the chambers beyond. The quietness of all things, 
the dead stillness of the hour, has made me realise all the 
facts deposed to, as if they had only happened to-day. To- 
morrow we will go to Ville-Neuve, and see the portrait of the 
murdered lady. 

March \Q>th . — Though the mistral has but little abated, we 
went across to Ville-Neuve this morning. Irene was not 
well enough to go ; so Mary and I, attended by Demetrius, 
our courier, made the expedition. Demetrius has no fancy 
for excursions off the common route, and only went with 
us, because he thought himself bound in duty to humour our 
eccentricity. The suspension -bridge over the Ehone was 
shaking and trembling with the wind as we crossed it; 
and our struggle in that long exposure was so exhausting, 
that when we were once in the comparative tranquillity of 
the other side, we stood still and looked about us for some 
time before going on. The colour of the landscape on each 
side of the rushing river was a warm grey; rocks, soil, 
buildings, all the same. There was but little vegetation to 
be seen ; a few olive-trees, of a moonlight green, grew in 
sheltered places. We thought it must be like the aspect of 
Palestine, from Stanley’s account; and Demetrius, who had 
been several times in the Holy Land, confirmed this notion 
of ours ; but then he was rather apt to confirm all our 
notions, provided they did not occasion him extra trouble. 
After we had crossed the bridge, we turned to the right, and 
went along a steep rocky road to the summit of the hill, 

678 


French Life 

above Ville-Neuve. Below us lay the town founded by 
Philippe le Bel, but completed by the Popes resident at 
Avignon, and fallen to comparative decay ever since the 
papal seat was re-established at Borne. 

We dropped down to the centre of the old town; the 
buildings in it were of the same massive construction as the 
palace, three miles off, at Avignon ; the houses were very 
lofty, and built of solid blocks of rough yellow-grey stone. 
There were arcades beneath their lower stories, and but 
little space between the two sides of the winding streets for 
carriages or horses. The way through the town was so 
tortuous that there was no bit of distance ever seen ; and we 
felt as if we had fallen into a crevasse. Not a person was 
in the deserted streets. After trying at one or two porte- 
mchereSy we at length hit upon the convent in which there 
was the portrait of Madame de Gange, painted by Mignard, 
her famous contemporary. A nun, in attendance upon the 
hospital at the end of the court-yard, came to receive us, 
and was all surprise at our request to see the picture. Was 
it not the famous painting of “The Last Judgement,” done 
by the good King Bene, that we wished to look at ? At any 
rate, both pictures hung side by side in the ante- chapel to 
our right on entering. So we went in, and gazed at the face 
of the heroine of the tragical history we had been reading 
the night before. She was dressed, like our guide the nun, 
in a black and white conventual dress, such as I suppose 
she would assume when en retraite after her first husband’s 
death; she held red and white roses in her hands, in her 
scapular; the lovely colour was needed by the painter, or 
perhaps La Belle Proven^ale was fond of the flowers. Her 
face was one of exquisite beauty and great peacefulness of 
expression — round rather than oval; dark hair, dark eye- 
brows, and blue eyes ; there was very little colour excepting 
in the lips. You would have called it the portrait of a sweet, 
happy, young woman, innocently glad in her possession of 
rare beauty. 

After gratifying the nun by looking at the newly-painted 

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and tawdry chapel beyond, and by doing our utmost to feel 
admiration for King E4ne’s picture, we left the convent. 
For a minute or two we were full of Madame de Gauge; 
then, I am sorry to say, the carnal feeling of hunger took 
possession of us, after our long walk ; and we sent Deme- 
trius off in every direction to buy us a cake — bread — 
anything eatable. He came back to where we were sitting 
under the shelter of a rock. There was no shop for eatables, 
not even an hotel, or a restaurant, or a cafe, or an estaminet. 
So we came back to the H6tel de I’Europe, Avignon, with 
very good appetites for the table d'hote. 

March 11th . — A telegram from Marseilles. A boat starts 
to-day for Civita Vecchia. 


680 


CROWLEY CASTLE 


Sir Mark Crowley was the last baronet of his name, and 
it is now nearly a century since he died. Last year I visited 
the ruins of his great old Norman castle, and loitered in the 
village near, where I heard some of the particulars of the 
following tale from old inhabitants, who had heard them 
from their fathers — no further back. 

We drove from the little sea-bathing place in Sussex, to 
see the massive ruins of Crowley Castle, which is the show- 
excursion of Merton. We had to alight at a field- gate, the 
road further being too bad for the slightly-built carriage, or 
the poor tired Merton horse; and we walked for about a 
quarter of a mile, through uneven ground which had once 
been an Italian garden ; and then we came to a bridge over 
a dry moat, and went over the groove of a portcullis that 
had once closed in the massive entrance, into an empty space 
surrounded by thick walls, draperied with ivy, but unroofed 
and open to the sky. 

We could judge of the beautiful tracery that had been in 
the windows by the remains of the stone- work here and 
there ; and an old man — “ ever so old,” as he called himself 
when we asked his exact age — ^who scrambled and stumbled 
out of some lair in the least devastated part of the ruins at 
our approach, and established himself as guide, showed us 
a scrap of glass, yet lingering in what was the window of the 
great drawing-room not above seventy years ago. After he 
had done his duty, he hobbled with us to the neighbouring 
church, where the knightly Crowleys lie buried : some com- 
memorated by ancient brasses, some by altar-tombs, some by 

68i 


Crowley Castle 

fine Latin epitaphs, attributing to them every virtue under the 
sun. He had to take the church-key back to the adjoining 
parsonage, at the entrance of the long, stragghng street which 
formed the village of Crowley. The castle and the church 
were on the summit of a hill, from which we could see the 
distant fine of sea beyond the misty marshes. The village 
fell away from the church and parsonage down the hill. 
The aspect of the place was little, if at all, changed from its 
aspect in 1772. 

But I must begin a httle earlier. From one of the Latin 
epitaphs I learnt that Ameha Lady Crowley died in 1756, 
and was deeply regretted by her loving husband. Sir Mark, 
who, after a good space of time, came in for his share of 
posthumous praise. He never married again; though his 
wife had left him no heir to the name or estate — only a httle, 
tiny girl — Theresa Crowley. This child would inherit her 
mother’s fortune, and all that Sir Mark was free to leave ; 
but this latter was not much, the castle and all the lands 
going to his sister’s son Marmaduke, or, as he was usually 
called, Duke, Brownlow. Duke’s parents were dead, and his 
uncle was his guardian, and his guardian’s house his home. 
The lad was some seven or eight years older than his cousin ; 
and probably Sir Mark thought that it was not unlikely that 
his daughter and his heir might make a match. Theresa’s 
mother had some foreign blood in her, and had been brought 
up in France — not so far away but that its shores might be 
seen by any one who chose to take an easy day’s ride from 
Crowley Castle for the purpose. 

Lady Crowley had been a delicate, elegant creature, but 
no great beauty, judging from all accounts ; Sir Mark’s 
family were famous for their good looks ; Theresa, an un- 
usually lucky child, inherited the outward graces of both 
parents. A portrait which I saw of her, degraded to a 
station over the parlour chimney-piece in the village-inn, 
showed me black hair, soft yet arch grey eyes, with brows 
and lashes of the same tint as her hair ; a full, pretty, 
pouting, passionate mouth, and a round, slender throat, 

682 


Crowley Castle 

She was a wilful little creature, and her father’s indulgence 
only made her more wayward. She had a nurse too — a 
French bonne — whose mother had been about my lady from 
her youth, and who had followed her to England and had 
died there. Victorine had been in attendance on the young 
Theresa from her earliest infancy, and almost took the place 
of a parent in power and affection — in power, as to ordering 
and arranging almost what she liked, concerning the child’s 
management — ^in love, because they speak to this day of the 
black year, when virulent small-pox was rife in Crowley, and 
when. Sir Mark being far away on some diplomatic mission 
(in Vienna, I fancy) Victorine shut herself up with Miss 
Theresa ; when the child was taken ill with the loathsome 
disease, and nursed her night and day. She only succumbed 
to the dreadful illness, when all danger to the child was 
over. Theresa came out of it with unblemished beauty; 
Victorine barely escaped with life, and was disfigured for 
life. 

This disfigurement put a stop to much unfounded scandal 
which had been afloat respecting the French servant’s great 
influence over Sir Mark. He was, in fact, an easy and 
indolent man, rarely excited to any vehemence of emotion ; 
and he felt it to be a point of honour to carry out his dead 
wife’s wish that Victorine should never leave Theresa, and 
that the management of her little child should be confided to 
her. Only once had there been a struggle between Sir Mark 
and the bonne ; and then she had won the victory. And no 
wonder, if the old butler’s account was true. He had gone 
into the room unawares, and had found Sir Mark and 
Victorine at high words ; and he said that Victorine was 
white with rage ; that her eyes were blazing with passionate 
fire ; that her voice was low and her words were few ; but 
that, although she spoke in French and the butler only knew 
his native English, he persisted to his dying day in declaring 
that he would rather have been sworn at by a drunken 
grenadier with a sword in his hand, than have had those 
words of Victorine’s addressed to him. 

683 


Crowley Castle 

Even the choice of Theresa’s masters was left to Victorine. 
A little reference was occasionally made to Madam Hawtrey, 
the parson’s wife, and a distant relation of Sir Mark’s ; but, 
seeing that, if Victorine chose to order it. Madam Hawtrey’s 
own little daughter Bessy would have been deprived of the 
advantages resulting from gratuitous companionship in all 
Theresa’s lessons, she was careful how she opposed or made 
an enemy of Mademoiselle Victorine. Bessy was a gentle, 
quiet child, and grew up to be a sensible, sweet-tempered 
girl, with a very fair share of English beauty; fresh-com- 
plexioned, brown-eyed, round-faced, with a stiff though well- 
made figure that was as different as possible from Theresa’s 
slight, lithe, graceful form. Duke was a young man to 
these two maidens, while they to him were little more than 
children. Of course, he admired his cousin Theresa the 
most — who would not ? — but he was establishing his first 
principles of morality for himself, and her conduct towards 
Bessy often jarred against his ideas of right. 

One day, after she had been tyrannising over the self- 
contained and patient Bessy so as to make the latter cry — 
and both the amount of tyranny and the crying were unusual 
circumstances, for Theresa was of a generous nature when 
not put out of the way — Duke spoke to his cousin : 

“ Theresa ! you had no right to blame Bessy as you did. 
It was as much your fault as hers. You were as much 
bound to remember Mr. Dawson’s directions as to what 
sums you were to do for him as she.” 

The girl opened her great grey eyes in surprise. She to 
blame ! 

“ What does Bessy come to the castle for, I wonder ? 
They pay nothing — we pay all. The least she can do is to 
remember for me what we are told. I shan’t trouble myself 
with attending to Mr. Dawson’s directions; and, if Bessy 
does not like to do it, she can stay away. She already 
knows enough to earn her bread as a maid ; which I suppose 
is what she’ll have to come to.” 

The moment Theresa had said this, she could have bitten 
684 


Crowley Castle 

her tongue out for the meanness and rancour of this speech. 
She saw pain and disappointment clearly expressed on 
Duke’s face. In another moment, her impulses would have 
carried her to the opposite extreme, and she would have 
spoken out her self-reproach. But Duke thought it his duty 
to remonstrate with her, and to read her a homily which, 
however true and just, weakened the effect of the look of 
suffering on his face. Her wits were called into play to 
refute his arguments ; her head rather than her heart took 
the prominent part in the controversy; and it ended un- 
satisfactorily to both : he going away with dismal though 
unspoken prognostics as to what she would become as a 
woman, if she was so supercilious and unfeeling as a girl ; 
she, the moment his back was turned and she might give 
way without compromising her pride, throwing herself on 
the floor, and sobbing as if her heart would break. 

Victorine heard her darling’s passionate sobs, and came in. 
“ What hast thou, my angel ? Who has been vexing 
thee — tell me, my cherished ! ” 

She tried to raise the girl; but Theresa would not be 
lifted up; nor would she speak till she chose, in spite of 
Victorine’s entreaties. When she chose, she lifted herself up, 
still sitting on the floor ; and, putting her tangled hair off her 
flushed, tear-stained face, she said— 

“Never mind; it was only something that Duke said; 
I don’t care for it now.” And, refusing Yictorine’s aid, she 
got up and stood thoughtfully looking out of the window. 

“ That Duke ! ” exclaimed Victorine. “ What business 
has Mr. Duke to go vex my darling ? He is not your husband 
yet, that he should scold you — or that you should mind what 
he says.” 

Theresa listened, and gained a new idea ; but she gave 
no sign of her attention, or of her hearing now for the first 
time that she was supposed to be intended for her cousin’s 
wife. She made no reply to Victorine’s caresses and 
speeches ; one might almost say she shook her off. As soon 
as she was left to herself, she took her hat, and, going on 

685 


Crowley Castle 

alone, as she was wont to do, in the pleasure-grounds, she 
went down the terrace-steps, crossed the bowling-green and 
opened a httle wicket-gate which led into the humble garden 
of the parsonage. There were Bessy and her mother gather- 
ing fruit. It was Bessy whom Theresa sought ; there was 
something in Madam Hawtrey’s silky manner that was 
always rather repugnant to her, whom she wished specially 
to please ; and Theresa would much rather have found her 
injured playfellow alone. 

However, she was not going to shrink from her resolution, 
because Madam Hawtrey was there. So she went up to the 
startled Bessy, and said to her, as if she was reciting a pre- 
pared speech : 

“ Bessy, I behaved very crossly to you ; I had no business 
to speak to you as I did.” 

“ Will you forgive me ? ” was the pre-determined end of 
this confession ; but, somehow, when it came to that, she 
could not say it, with Madam Hawtrey standing by, ready to 
smile and curtsey as soon as ever she could catch Theresa’s 
eye. 

There was no need to ask for forgiveness, though; for 
Bessy had put down her half-filled basket, and came softly 
up to Theresa, stealing her brown, soil-stained little hand 
into the young lady’s soft white one, and looking up at her 
with loving brown eyes. 

I am so sorry, but I think it was the sums on page 108. 
I have been looking and looking, and I am almost sure.” 

Her exculpatory tone caught her mother’s ear, although 
the words did not; and she came up, as she thought, to 
make peace. 

“ I am sure. Miss Theresa, Bessy is so grateful for the 
privileges of learning with you ! It is such an advantage to 
her ! I often tell her, ‘ Take pattern by Miss Theresa and 
do as she does, and try and speak as she does, and there’ll 
not be a parson’s daughter in all Sussex to compare with 
you.’ Don’t I, Bessy? ” 

Theresa shrugged her shoulders — a trick she had caught 
686 


Crowley Castle 

from Victorine — and, turning to Bessy, asked her what she 
was going to do with the gooseberries she was gathering — 
and, as Theresa spoke, she lazily picked the ripest out of the 
basket, and ate them. 

“ They are for a pudding,” said Bessy. “ As soon as we 
have gathered enough, I am going in to make it.” 

“ I’ll come and help you,” said Theresa, eagerly. “ I 
should so like to make a pudding. Our Monsieur Antoine 
never makes gooseberry-puddings.” 

Duke came past the parsonage an hour or so afterwards ; 
and, looking in by chance through the open casement- 
windows of the kitchen, he saw Theresa pinned-up in a bib 
and apron, her arms all over flour, flourishing a rolling-pin 
and laughing and chattering with Bessy, similarly attired. 
Duke had spent his morning, ostensibly in fishing, but in 
reahty in weighing in his own mind what he could do or say 
to soften the obdurate heart of his cousin. And here it was 
all inexplicably right, as if by some enchanter’s wand ! 

The only conclusion that Duke could come to was the 
same that many a wise (and foolish) man had come to 
before his day : “ Well ! women are past my comprehension, 
that’s all.” 

When all this took place, Theresa was about fifteen ; 
Bessy was perhaps six months older ; Duke was just leaving 
Oxford. His uncle. Sir Mark, was excessively fond of him ; 
yes ! and proud too, for he had distinguished himself at 
college, and every one spoke well of him. And he, for his 
part, loved Sir Mark, and, unspoiled by the fame and repu- 
tation he had gained at Christ Church, paid respectful 
deference to Sir Mark’s opinions. 

As Theresa grew older, her father thought that he played 
his cards well in singing Duke’s praises on every possible 
occasion. She tossed her head, and said nothing. Thanks 
to Victorine’s revelations, she understood perfectly the 
tendency of her father’s speeches. She intended to make 
her own choice of a husband, when the time came ; and it 
might be Duke, or it might be some one else. When Duke 

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Crowley Castle 

did not lecture or prose, but was sitting his horse so splendidly 
at the meet, before the huntsman gave the blast, “ Found ” — • 
when Duke was holding his own in discourse with other men 
— when Duke gave her one short, sharp word of command 
on any occasion — then she decided that she would marry 
him, and no one else. But when he found fault, or stumbled 
about so awkwardly in a minuet, or talked moralities against 
duelling, then she was sure that he should never be her 
husband. She wondered if he knew about it; if any one 
had told him, as Victorine had told her ; if her father had 
revealed his thoughts and wishes to his nephew as plainly 
as he had done to his daughter? This last query made 
her cheeks burn ; and, on days when this suspicion had 
been brought by any chance prominently before her mind, 
she was especially rude and disagreeable to Duke. 

He was to go abroad on the grand tour of Europe, to 
which young men of fortune usually devoted three years. 
He was to have a tutor, because all young men of his rank 
had tutors; else, he was quite wise enough, and steady 
enough, to have done without one, and probably knew a good 
deal more about what was to be observed in the countries 
they were going to visit than Mr. Eoberts, his appointed 
bear-leader. He was to come back, full of historical and 
pohtical knowledge, speaking French and Italian like a 
native, and having a smattering of barbarous German ; and 
he was to enter the House — as a county-member, if possible ; 
as a borough member, at the worst — and was to make a 
great success ; and then, as every one understood, he was to 
marry his cousin Theresa. 

He spoke to her father about it before starting on his 
travels. It was after dinner, in Crowley Castle. Sir Mark 
and Duke sat alone, each pensive at the thought of the 
coming parting. 

“ Theresa is but young,” said Duke, breaking into speech 
after a long silence ; “ but, if you have no objection, uncle, 
I should like to speak to her before I leave England — about 
my — my hopes.” 


688 


Crowley Castle 

Sir Mark played with his glass ; poured out some more 
wine ; drank it off at a draught ; and then replied : 

“ No, Duke, no. Leave her in peace with me. I have 
looked forward to having her as my companion during these 
three years; they’ll soon pass away” (to age, but not to 
youth), “ and I should like to have her undivided heart 
till you come back. No, Duke ! Three years will soon pass 
away — and then we’ll have a royal wedding.” 

Duke sighed, but said no more. The next day was the 
last. He wanted Theresa to go with him, to take leave of 
the Hawtreys at the Parsonage and of the villagers ; but 
she was wilful and would not accompany him. He re- 
membered, years afterwards, how Bessy’s gentle, peaceful 
manner had struck him, as contrasted with Theresa’s, on 
that last day. Both girls regretted his departure. He had 
been so uniformly gentle and thoughtful in his behaviour to 
Bessy that, without any idea of love, she felt him to be her 
pattern of noble, chivalrous manhood ; the only person, except 
her father, who was steadily kind to her. She admired his 
sentiments, she esteemed his principles, she considered his 
long evolvement of his ideas the truest eloquence. He had 
lent her books, he had directed her studies ; all the advice 
and information which Theresa had rejected had fallen to 
Bessy’s lot, and she had received it thankfully. 

Theresa burst into a passion of tears as soon as he and 
his suite were out of sight. She had refused the farewell 
kiss her father had ordered her to give him, but had waved 
her white handkerchief out of the great drawing-room window 
(that very window in which the old guide showed me the 
small angle of glass still lingering). But Duke had ridden 
away without looking back; ridden with slack rein and 
downcast head ; oppressed with the sorrow of parting. 

His absence was a great blank in Sir Mark’s life. He 
had never sought London much as a place of residence. In 
former days he had been suspected of favouring the Stuarts 
too much for loyalty; but nothing could be proved against 
him, and he had subsided into a very tolerably faithful 

689 2 Y 


Crowley Castle 

subject of King George the Third. Still, a cold shoulder 
having been turned to him by the Court party at one time, 
he had become prepossessed against the English capital. 
On the contrary, his wife’s predilections and his own 
tendencies had always made Paris a very agreeable place of 
residence to him. To Paris he at length resorted again, 
when the blank in his Hfe oppressed him ; and from Paris, 
about two years after Duke’s departure on the grand tour, 
he returned after a short absence from home, and suddenly 
announced to his daughter and the household that he had 
taken an apartment in the Eue Louis-le-Grand for the 
coming winter, to which there was to be an immediate re- 
moval of his daughter, Victorine, and certain other personal 
attendants and servants. 

Nothing could exceed Theresa’s mad joy at this un- 
expected news. She sprang upon her father’s neck and 
kissed him till she was tired — whatever he was. She ran to 
Victorine, and told her to guess what “ heavenly bhss ” was 
going to befall them ; dancing round the middle-aged woman 
until she, in her spoilt impatience, was becoming angry ; when, 
kissing her, she told her, and ran off to the Parsonage, and 
thence to the church, bursting in upon morning prayers — for 
it was All Saints’ Day, though she had forgotten it — and 
filliping a scrap of paper, on which she had hastily written 
“We are going to Paris for the winter, all of us,” rolled into 
a ball, from the castle pew to that of the parson. She saw 
Bessy redden as she caught it, put it into her pocket unread, 
and, after an apologetic glance at the curtained seat in 
which Theresa was, go on with her meek responses. Theresa 
went out by the private door in a momentary fit of passion. 
“ Stupid, cold-blooded creature ! ” she said to herself. 

But that afternoon Bessy came to the castle. She was 
so sorry, and so losing her own sorrow in sympathy for her 
friend’s gladness, that Theresa took her into favour again. 
The girls parted, with promises of correspondence and 
with some regret, the greatest on Bessy’s side. Some 
grand promises of Paris fashions and presents of dress 

690 


Crowley Castle 

Theresa made in her patronising way; but Bessy did not 
seem to care much for them — which was fortunate, as they 
were never fulfilled. 

Sir Mark had an idea in his head of perfecting Theresa’s 
accomplishments and manners by Paris masters and Parisian 
society. English residents in Venice, Florence, Eome, wrote 
to their friends at home about Duke. They spoke of him 
as what at the present day we should call a “ rising young 
man.” His praises ran so high, that Sir Mark began to fear 
lest his handsome nephew, feted by princes, courted by 
ambassadors, made love to by lovely Italian ladies, might 
find Theresa too country-bred for his taste. 

Thus had come about the engaging of the splendid 
apartment in the Eue Louis-le-Grand. The street itself is 
narrow, and now-a-days we are apt to think the situation 
close; but in those days it was the height of fashion; for 
the great arbiter of fashion, the Due de Eichelieu, lived 
there ; and to inhabit an apartment in that street was of 
itself a mark of bon-ton. Victorine seemed almost crazy 
with delight, when they took possession of their new abode. 
“ This dear Paris ! This lovely France ! And now I see my 
young lady, my darling, my angel, in a room suited to her 
beauty and her rank ; such as my lady, her mother, would 
have planned for her, if she had lived.” Any allusion to 
her dead mother always touched Theresa to the quick. 
She was in her bed, under the blue silk curtains of an alcove, 
when Victorine said this — for some time she had been too 
much fatigued to speak in answer to Victorine’s rhapsodies ; 
but now she put out her little hand and gave Victorine’s a 
pressure of gratitude and pleasure. 

Next day, she wandered about the rooms, and admired 
their splendour almost to Victorine’s content. Her father. 
Sir Mark, was out searching for a carriage and horses for 
his darling’s use ; and also found that not less necessary 
article — a married lady of rank who would take his gni 
under her wing, When all these preliminary arrangements 
were made, who so wildly happy as Theresa ! Her carriage 

691 


Crowley Castle 

was of the newest fashion, fit to vie with any on the Course 
de la Eeine, the then fashionable drive. The box at the 
Grand Opera and at the Fran9ais, which she shared with 
Madame la Duchesse de G., was the centre of observation ; 
Victorine was in the best humour ; Theresa’s credit at her 
dressmakers was unlimited ; her indulgent father was 
charmed with all she did and said. She had masters, it is 
true, and consequently lessons to attend to ; but, to a rich 
and beautiful young lady, masters were wonderfully com- 
plaisant, and with them, as with all the world, she only did 
what she liked. Of Parisian society, she had enough, and 
more than enough, of that. The Duchess went everywhere, 
and Theresa went too. So did a certain Count de Grange : 
some relation or connection of the Duchess ; handsome, with 
a South of France handsomeness ; with delicate features, 
marred by an over-softness of expression, from which (so 
men said) the tiger was occasionally seen to peep forth. 
But, for elegance of dress and demeanour, he had not his 
fellow in Paris ; which of course meant, not in the world. 

Sir Mark heard rumours of this man’s conduct which 
were not pleasing to him; but, when he accompanied his 
daughter into society, the Count was only as deferential as 
it became a gentleman to be to so much beauty and grace. 
When Theresa was taken out by the Duchess to the opera, 
to balls, to petits soupers, without her father, then the Count 
was more than deferential ; he was adoring. It was a little 
intoxicating to a girl, brought up in the solitude of an 
English village, to have so many worshippers at her feet all 
at once, in the great gay city ; and the inbred coquetry of 
her nature came out, adding to her outward grace, if taking 
away from the purity and dignity of her character. It was 
Victorine’ s delight to send her darling out arrayed for 
conquest — her hair delicately powdered, and scented with 
marecJmle ; her little mouches put on so that the tiny half- 
moon patch lengthened the already almond-shaped eye on 
one side of Theresa’s face, while the minute star gave the 
effect of a dimple at the corner of her scarlet lips on the 

692 


Crowley Castle 

c^^^her ; the silver gauze looped-up over the petticoat of blue 
brocade, distended over a hoop, much as gowns are worn 
in our days ; the coral ornaments of her silver fan matching 
with the tint of the high heels to her shoes. And at night 
Victorine was never tired of listening and questioning; of 
triumphing in Theresa’s triumphs; of invariably reminding 
her that she was bound to marry the absent cousin and 
return to the half-feudal state of the old castle in Sussex. 

Still, even now, if Duke had returned from Italy, all 
might have gone well ; but, when Sir Mark, alarmed at the 
various proposals he received for Theresa’s hand from needy 
French noblemen, and at the admiration she was exciting 
everywhere, wrote to Duke, and urged him to join them in 
Paris on his return from his travels, Duke answered that 
three months were yet unexpired of the time allotted for 
the grand tour ; and that he was anxious to avail himself of 
that interval to see something of Spain. 

Sir Mark read this letter aloud to Theresa, with many 
expressions of annoyance as he read. Theresa merely said, 
“ Of course, Duke does what he likes,” and turned away 
to see some new lace brought for her inspection. She 
heard her father sigh over a re-perusal of Duke’s letter, and 
she set her teeth in the anger she would not show in acts or 
words. That day the Count de Grange met with gentler 
treatment than he had done for many days — than he had 
done since her father’s letter to Duke had been sent off to 
Genoa. As ill-fortune would have it. Sir Mark had occasion 
to return to England at this time ; and he, guileless himself, 
consigned Theresa, and her maid Victorine, and her man 
FeUx, to the care of the Duchess for three weeks. They 
were to reside at the Hdtel de G. during this time. The 
Duchess welcomed them in her most caressing manner ; and 
showed Theresa the suite of rooms, with the httle private 
staircase appropriated to her use. 

The Count de Grange was an habitual visitor at the 
house of his cousin the Duchess, who was a gay Parisian, 
absorbed in her life of giddy dissipation. The Count found 

693 


Crowley Castle 

means of influencing Yictorine in his favour ; not by money 
— so coarse a bribe would have bad no power over her — 
but by many presents, accompanied by sentimental letters, 
breathing devotion to her charge and extremest appreciation 
of the faithful friend whom Theresa looked upon as a 
mother, and whom for this reason be, the Count, revered and 
loved. Intermixed were wily allusions to bis great possessions 
in Provence, and to bis ancient bneage (the one mortgaged, 
the other disgraced). Victorine, whose right band bad for- 
gotten its cunning in the length of her dreary vegetation 
in Crowley Castle, was deceived, and became a vehement 
advocate of the dissolute Adonis of the Paris salons in bis 
suit for her darling. When Sir Mark came back, be was 
dismayed and shocked beyond measure by finding the Count 
and Theresa at bis feet, entreating him to forgive their 
stolen marriage — a marriage which, though incomplete as to 
its legal forms, was yet too complete to be otherwise than 
sanctioned by Theresa’s nearest friends. The Duchess 
accused her cousin of perfidy and treason. Sir Mark said 
nothing. But his health failed from that time, and he sank 
into an old, querulous, grey-haired man. 

There was some ado, I know not what, between Sir 
Mark and the Count regarding the control and disposition of 
the fortune Theresa inherited from her mother. The Count 
gained the victory, owing to the different nature of the 
French laws from the English; and this made Sir Mark 
abjure the country and the city he had loved so long. 
Henceforward, he swore, his foot should never touch French 
soil. If Theresa liked to come and see him at Crowley 
Castle, she should be as a daughter of the house ought to 
be, and ever should be; but her husband should never 
enter the gates of the house in Sir Mark’s lifetime. 

For some months he was out of humour with Duke, 
because of his tardy return from his tour, and his delay in 
joining them in Paris, by which, so Sir Mark fancied, 
Theresa’s marriage had been brought about. But, when 
Duke came home depressed in spirits, and submissive to his 

694 


Crowley Casde 

uncle even under unjust blame, Sir Mark restored bim to 
favour in the course of a summer’s day, and henceforth 
added another injury to the debtor side of the Count’s 
reckoning. 

Duke never told his uncle of the woeful ill-report he had 
heard of the Count in Paris, where he had found all the 
better part of the French nobility pitying the lovely English 
heiress who had been entrapped into a marriage with one 
of the most disreputable of their order, a gambler and a 
reprobate. He could not leave Paris without seeing Theresa, 
whom he believed to be as yet unacquainted with his arrival 
in the city ; so he went to call upon her one evening. She 
was sitting alone, splendidly dressed, ravishingly lovely; 
she made a step forwards to meet him, hardly heeding the 
announcement of his name, for she had recognised a man’s 
tread, and fancied it was her husband coming to accompany 
her to some grand reception. Duke saw the quick change 
from hope to disappointment on her mobile face — and she 
spoke out at once her reason. 

“ Adolphe promised to come and fetch me ; the Princess 
receives to-night. I hardly expected a visit from you. 
Cousin Duke,” recovering herself into a'pretty, proud reserve. 

It is a fortnight, I think, since I learnt you were in Paris. 
I had given up all expectation of the honour of a visit from 
you ! ” 

Duke felt that, as she had heard of his being there, it was 
too awkward to make excuses which both he and she would 
know to be false, or explanations the very truth of which 
would be offensive to the loving, trusting, deceived wife. So 
he turned the conversation to his travels, his heart aching 
for her all the time, as he noticed her wandering attention, 
when she heard any passing sound. Ten — eleven — twelve 
o’clock; he would not leave her, he thought his presence 
was a comfort and a pleasure to her. But, when one 
o’clock struck, she said some unexpected business must have 
detained her husband, and she was glad of it, as she had 
all along felt too much tired to go out; and, besides, the 

69s 


Crowley Castle 

happy consequence of her husband’s detention was the long 
talk with Duke. 

He did not see her again after this polite dismissal ; nor 
did he see her husband at all. Whether through ill-chance 
or carefully disguised purpose, it did so happen that, though 
he called several times, and even wrote notes requesting an 
appointment, when he might come with the certainty of 
finding the Count and Countess at home, in order to wish 
them farewell before setting out for England, it was all in 
vain. But he said nothing to Sir Mark of all this. He 
only tried to fill up the blanks in the old man’s life. He 
went between Sir Mark and his tenants, to whom he was 
unwilling to show himself unaccompanied by the beautiful 
daughter, who had so often been his companion in his walks 
and rides, before that ill-omened winter in Paris. He was 
thankful to have the power of returning the long kindness 
his uncle had shown him in childhood ; thankful to be of use 
to him in his desertion ; thankful to atone in some measure 
for his neglect of his uncle’s wish, that he should have 
made a hasty return to Paris. 

But it was a little dull, after the long excitement of 
travel, after associating with all that was most cultivated, 
and seeing all that was most famous, in Europe, to be shut 
up in that vast, magnificent, dreary castle, with Sir Mark for 
a perpetual companion — Sir Mark and no other. The par- 
sonage was near at hand ; and occasionally Mr. Hawtrey 
came in to visit his parishioner in his trouble. But Sir 
Mark kept the clergyman at bay. He knew that his brother 
in age, his brother in circumstances (for had not Mr. 
Hawtrey an only child, and she a daughter?), was sym- 
pathising with him in his sorrow, and he was too proud 
to bear it; indeed, sometimes he was so rude to his old 
neighbour, that Duke would go next morning to the Par- 
sonage, to soothe the smart. 

And so — and so — gradualljr, imperceptibly, at last his 
heart was drawn to Bessy. Her mother angled, and angled 
skilfully ; at first scarcely daring to hope ; then, remembering 

696 


Crowley Castle 

her own descent from the same stock as Duke, she drew 
herself up, and set to work with fresh skill and vigour. To 
be sure, it was a dangerous game for a mother to play ; her 
daughter’s happiness was staked on her success. How 
could simple, country-bred Bessy help being attracted to 
the courtly, handsome man, travelled and accomplished, 
good and gentle, whom she saw every day, and who treated 
her with the kind familiarity of a brother ; while he was not 
a brother, but in some measure a disappointed man, as 
everybody knew ? Bessy was a daisy of an English maiden, 
pure and good to the heart’s core and most hidden thought ; 
sensible in all her accustomed daily ways ; yet not so much 
without imagination as not to desire something beyond the 
narrow range of knowledge and experience in which her 
days had hitherto been passed. Add to this a pretty figure, 
a bright, healthy complexion, lovely teeth, and quite enough 
of beauty in her other features to have rendered her the 
belle of a country town, if her lot had been cast in such a 
place — and it is not to be wondered at that, after she had 
been secretly in love with Duke with all her heart for 
nearly a year, almost worshipping him, he should discover 
that, of all the women he had ever known — except, perhaps, 
the lost Theresa — Bessy Hawtrey had it in her power to 
make him the happiest of men. 

Sir Mark grumbled a little ; but now-a-days he grumbled 
at everything, poor, disappointed, all but childless old man ! 
As to the vicar, he stood astonished and almost dismayed. 

“ Have you thought enough about it, Mr Duke ? ” the 
parson asked. “ Young men are apt to do things in a hurry 
that they repent at leisure. Bessy is a good girl — a good 
girl, God bless her ; but she has not been brought up as 
your wife should have been — at least as folks will say your 
wife should have been — though I may say for her she has a 
very pretty sprinkling of mathematics. I taught her myself, 
Duke.” 

“ May I go and ask her myself ? I only want your per- 
mission,” urged Duke. 


697 


Crowley Castle 

“ Aye, go ! But perhaps you had better ask Madaru first. 
She’ll like to be told everything as soon as me.” 

But Duke did not care for Madam. He rushed through 
the open door of the Parsonage, into the homely sitting- 
rooms, and softly called for Bessy. When she came, he 
took her by the hand and led her forth into the field-path at 
the back of the orchard ; and there he won his bride, to the 
full content of both their hearts. 

All this time, the inhabitants of Crowley Castle, and the 
quiet people of the neighbouring village of Crowley, heard 
but httle of “ the Countess,” as it was their fashion to call 
her. Sir Mark had his letters, it is true ; and he read them 
over and over again, and moaned over them, and sighed, and 
put them carefully aside in a bundle. But they were like 
arrows of pain to him. No one knew their contents ; none, 
even knowing them, would have dreamed, any more than 
he did, for all his moans and sighs, of the utter wretched- 
ness of the writer? Love had long since vanished from 
the habitation of that pair — a habitation, not a home, even 
in its brightest days. Love had gone out of the window, 
long before poverty had come in at the door ; yet that grim 
visitant, who never tarries in tracking out a disreputable 
gambler, had now arrived. The count lost the last remnants 
of his character as a man who played honourably ; and, 
thenceforth — that being pretty nearly the only sin which 
banished men from good society in those days — he had to 
play where and how he could. Theresa’s money went as 
her poor angry father had foretold. By-and-by, and without 
her consent, her jewel-box was rified ; the diamonds round 
the locket holding her mother’s picture were wrenched and 
picked out by no careful hand. Victorine found Theresa 
crying over these poor relics — crying, at last, without disguise 
and as if her heart would break. 

“ Oh, mamma ! mamma ! mamma ! ” she sobbed out, 
holding up the smashed and disfigured miniature, as an 
explanation of her grief. She was sitting on the floor, on 
which she had thrown herself at the first discovery of the 

698 


Crowley Castle 

theft. Yictorine sate down by her, taking her head upon 
her breast, and soothing her. She did not ask who had 
done it ; she asked Theresa no questions which the latter 
would have shrunk from answering ; she knew all in that 
hour, without the Count’s name having passed either of their 
lips. But from that time she watched him, as a tiger watches 
his prey. 

When the letters came from England, the three letters 
from Sir Mark and the affianced bride and bridegroom, 
announcing the approaching marriage of Duke and Bessy, 
Theresa took them straight to Victorine. Theresa’s lips 
were tightened ; her pale cheeks were paler. She waited 
for Victorine to speak. Not a word did the French woman 
utter ; but she smoothed the letters one over the other, and 
tore them right in two, throwing the pieces on the ground 
and stamping on them. 

“ Oh, Victorine ! ” said Theresa, dismayed at passion that 
went so far beyond her own. “ I never expected it ; I never 
thought of it — but perhaps it was but natural.” 

“ It was not natural ; it was infamous ! To have loved 
you once, and not to wait for chances, but to take up with 
that mean, poor girl at the Parsonage ! Pah ! and her letter ! 
Sir Mark is of my mind, though, I can see. I am sorry I 
tore up his letter. He feels, he knows, that Mr. Duke 
Brownlow ought to have waited, waited, waited. Some one 
waited fourteen years, did he not ? The Count will not live 
for ever.” 

Theresa did not see the face of wicked meaning as these 
last words were spoken. 

Another year rolled heavily on its course of wretchedness 
to Theresa. That same revolution of time brought only the 
increase of peace and joy to the English couple, striving 
humbly, striving well, to do their duty as children to the 
unhappy, deserted Sir Mark. They had their reward in the 
birth of a little girl. Yet close on this birth followed a great 
sorrow. The good parson died after a short, sudden illness, 
tended by his daughter and her husband as assiduously as 

699 


Crowley Castle 

by his wife, whose one great merit was her appreciating love 
for her virtuous husband. Then came the customary trouble 
after the death of a clergyman ; the widow had to make haste 
and leave the Parsonage, the home of a lifetime, and seek a 
new resting-place for her declining years. 

Fortunately for all parties, the new vicar was a bachelor 
— no other than the tutor who had accompanied Duke on his 
grand tour; and it was almost made a condition that he 
was to allow the widow of his predecessor to remain at 
the Parsonage as his housekeeper. Bessy would fain have 
had her mother at the castle ; and this course would have 
been infinitely preferred by Madam Hawtrey, who indeed 
suggested the wish to her daughter. But Sir Mark was 
obstinately set against it; nor did he spare his caustic 
remarks on Madam Hawtrey, even before her own daughter. 
He had never quite forgiven Duke’s marriage, although he 
was personally exceedingly fond of Bessy. He referred this 
marriage, in some part, and perhaps to no greater extent 
than was true, to Madam’s good management in throwing 
the young people together; and he was explicit in the 
expression of his opinion. 

Poor Theresa ! Every day she more and more bitterly 
rued her ill-starred marriage. Often and often she cried to 
herself, when she was alone in the dead of the night, “ I 
cannot bear it — I cannot bear it longer.” But again, in the 
daylight, her pride helped her to keep her woe to herself. 
She could not bear the gaze of pitying eyes ; she could not 
bear even Victorine’s fierce sympathy. She might have gone 
home hke a poor prodigal to her father, if Duke and Bessy 
had not, as she imagined, reigned triumphant in her place, 
both in her father’s heart and in her father’s home. And, 
all this while, that father almost hated the tender attentions 
which were rendered to him by those who were not his 
Theresa — his only child, for whose presence he yearned and 
longed in silent misery. Then again (to return to Theresa), 
her husband had his fits of kindness towards her. If he 
had been very fortunate in play, if he had heard other men 

700 


Crowley Castle 

admire her, he would come back for a few moments to his 
loyalty, and would lure back the poor tortured heart; only 
to crush it afresh. 

One day, after a short time of easy temper, caresses, and 
levity, she found out something, I know not what, in his 
life which stung her to the quick. Her sharp wits and 
sharper tongue spoke out most cutting insults; at first he 
smiled, as if amused to see how she was ransacking her 
brain to find stabbing speeches ; but at length she touched 
some sore. He scarcely lost the mocking smile upon his 
face; but his eyes flashed lurid fire, and his heavy closed 
hand fell on her white shoulder with a terrible blow. She 
stood up facing him, tearless, deadly white. “ The poor old 
man at home ! ” was all she said, trembling, shivering all 
over, but with her eyes fixed on his coward’s face. He 
shrank from her look ; laughed aloud to hide whatever feel- 
ing might be hidden in his bosom ; and left the room. She 
only said again, “ The poor old man — the poor old deserted, 
desolate man ! ” and felt about blindly for a chair. 

She had not sat down a minute though, before she 
started up and rang her bell. It was Victorine’s office to 
answer it ; but Theresa looked almost surprised to see her. 

You ! — I wanted the others — I want them all ! They 
shall all see how their master treats his wife ! Look here ” 
— and she pushed the gauze neck-kerchief off her shoulder ; 
the mark was there red and swollen. “ Bid them all come 
here, Victorine — Amadee, Jean, Adele, all ! I will be justified 
by their testimony — whatever I do.” 

Then she fell to shaking and crying. Victorine said 
nothing, but went to a certain cupboard where she kept 
medicines and drugs of which she alone knew the properties ; 
and then she mixed a draft, which she made her mistress 
take. Whatever its nature was, it was soothing. Theresa 
leaned back in her chair, still sobbing heavily from time to 
time, till at last she dropped into a kind of a doze. Then 
Victorine softly lifted the neck-kerchief, which had fallen into 
its place, and looked at the mark. She did not speak ; but 

701 


Crowley Castle 

her whole face was a fearful threat. After she had looked 
her fill, she smiled a deadly smile. And then she touched 
the soft bruised flesh with her lips, much as though Theresa 
were the child she had been twenty years ago. Soft as the 
touch was, Theresa shivered and started and half awoke. 
“ Are they come,” she murmured, “ Amadee, Jean, Adele ? ” 
but, without waiting for an answer, she fell asleep again. 

Victorine went quietly back to the cupboard where she 
kept her drugs, and stayed there, mixing something noise- 
lessly. When she had done what she had wanted, she 
returned to her mistress’s bedroom and looked at her, still 
sleeping. Then she began to arrange the room. No blue 
silk curtains and silver mirrors now, as in the Eue Louis- 
le- Grand. A washed-out, faded Indian chintz and an old 
battered toilette service of Japan- ware ; the disorderly signs 
of the Count’s late presence ; an emptied flask of liqueur. 

All the time Victorine arranged this room, she kept saying 
to herself, “At last, at last!” Theresa slept through the 
daylight — slept late into the evening, leaning back where 
she had fallen in her chair. She was so motionless that 
Victorine appeared alarmed. Once or twice, she felt her 
pulse, and gazed earnestly into the tear-stained face. Once, 
she very carefully lifted one of the white eyelids, and, holding 
a lighted taper near, peered into the eye. Apparently she 
was satisfied ; for she went out and ordered a basin of broth 
to be ready when she asked for it. Again she sate in deepest 
silence ; nothing stirred in the closed chamber ; but in the 
street the carriages began to roll, and the footmen and torch- 
bearers to cry aloud their masters’ names and titles, to show 
what carriage in that narrow street was entitled to pre- 
cedence. A carriage stopped at the hotel of which they 
occupied the third floor. Then the bell of their apartment 
rang loudly, rang violently. Victorine went out to see what 
it was that might disturb her darling — as she called Theresa 
to herself — her sleeping lady, as she spoke of her to her 
servants. 

She met those servants bringing in her master, the Count, 
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Crowley Castle 

dead. Dead with a sword- wound in some ignoble, infamous 
struggle. Victorine stood and looked at him for a moment 
or two. “ Better so,” she muttered ; “ better so ! But, 
monseigneur, you shall take this with you, whithersoever 
your wicked soul is fleeing.” And she struck him a light 
stroke on his shoulder, just where Theresa’s bruise was. It 
was as light a stroke as well could be ; but this irreverence 
to the dead called forth indignation even from the hardened 
bearers of the body. Little recked Victorine. She turned 
her back on the corpse, went to her cupboard, took out the 
mixture she had made with so much care, poured it out upon 
the wooden floor, smeared it about with her foot. 

A fortnight later, when no news had come from Theresa 
for many weeks, a poor sort of chaise was seen from the 
castle-windows lumbering slowly up the carriage-road to the 
gate. No one thought much of it ; perhaps it was some 
friend of the housekeeper’s ; perhaps it might even be some 
humble relation of Mrs. Duke’s (for many such had fotmd 
out their cousin since her marriage). No one noticed the 
shabby carriage much, till the hall-porter was startled by 
the sound of the great bell pealing and, on opening wide 
the hall-doors, saw standing before him the Mademoiselle 
Victorine of old days, thinner, sallower, in mourning. In 
the carriage sate Theresa, in the deep widow’s weeds of 
those days. She looked out of the carriage window wist- 
fully, beyond Joseph, the hall porter. 

“My father?” said she eagerly, before Victorine could 
speak. “Is Sir Mark — well?” (“Ahve,” was her first 
thought ; but she dared not give the word utterance.) 

“ Call Mr. Duke,” said Joseph, speaking to some one 
unseen. Then he came forwards, “ God bless you, miss ; 
God bless you ! And this day of all days I Sir Mark is well 
—leastways, he’s sadly changed. Where’s Mr. Duke ? Call 
hiTin ! My young lady’s fainting.’^ 

And this was Theresa’s return home. None ever knew 
how much she had suffered since she had left home. If any 
had known, Victorine would never have stood there, 

703 


one 


Crowley Castle 

dlf^ssed in that mourning. She put it on, sorely against 
her will, for the purpose of upholding her lying fiction of 
Theresa’s having been a happy, prosperous marriage. She 
was always indignant, if any of the old servants fell back 
into the once familiar appellation of “ Miss Theresa.” “ The 
Countess,” she would say in lofty rebuke. 

What passed between Theresa and her father at that first 
interview no one ever knew. Whether she told him anything 
of her married life, or whether she only soothed the tears he 
shed on seeing her again, by sweet repetition of tender words 
and caresses — such as are the sugared pabulum of age as 
well as of infancy — was always a mystery. Neither Duke 
nor his wife ever heard her allude to the time she had 
passed in Paris, except in the most cursory and superficial 
manner. Sir Mark was anxious to show her all was forgiven, 
and would fain have displaced Bessy from her place as lady 
of the castle, and made Theresa take the headship of the 
house, and sit at table where the mistress ought to be. And 
Bessy would have given up these onerous dignities without 
a word ; for Duke was always more jealous for his wife’s 
position than she herself was. But Theresa decHned to 
assume any such place in the household, saying, in the 
languid way that now seemed habitual to her, that English 
housekeeping and all the domestic arrangements of an 
English country-house were cumbrous and wearisome to 
her; that, if Bessy would continue to act as she had done 
hitherto, and would so forestall what must be her natural 
duties at some future period, she, Theresa, should be 
infinitely obliged. 

Bessy consented ; and in everything she tried to remember 
what Theresa liked, and how affairs were ordered in the old 
Theresa days. She wished the servants to feel that “the 
Countess ” had equal rights with herself in the management 
of the house. But she to whom the housekeeper takes her 
accounts, she in whose hands the power of conferring favours 
and privileges remains de facto, will always be held by 
servants as the mistress ; and Theresa’s claims soon sank 

704 


Crowley Castle 

into the background. At first she was too broken-spirited, 
too languid, to care for anything but quiet rest in her father’s 
companionship. They sate sometimes for hours hand in- 
hand ; or they sauntered out on the terraces, hardly speaking, 
but happy ; because they were once more together, and once 
more on loving terms. Theresa grew strong during this 
time of gentle, brooding peace. The pinched, pale face of 
anxiety, lined with traces of suffering, relaxed into the soft 
oval; the light came into the eyes, the colour into the 
cheeks. 

But, in the autumn after her return. Sir Mark died. It 
had been a gradual decline of strength, and his last moments 
were spent in her arms. Her new misfortune threw her 
back into the wan, worn creature she had been when she 
first came home, a widow, to Crowley Castle. She shut 
herself up in her rooms, and allowed no one to come near her 
but Victorine. Neither Duke nor Bessy was admitted into 
the darkened apartments, which she had hung with black 
cloth in solemn funereal state. 

Victorine’s life since her return to the castle had been 
anything but peaceable. New powers had arisen in the 
house-keeper’s room. Madam Brownlow had her maid, far 
more exacting than Madam Brownlow herself ; and a new 
house-keeper reigned in the place of her who was formerly 
only an echo of Victorine’s opinions. Victorine’s own temper, 
too, was not improved by her four years abroad, and there 
was a very general disposition among the servants to resist 
all her assumption of authority. She felt her powerlessness, 
after a struggle or two, but treasured up her vengeance. 
If she had lost power over the household, there was no 
diminution of her influence over her mistress. It was her 
device at last that lured the Countess out of the gloomy 
seclusion. 

Almost the only creature Victorine cared for besides 
Theresa, was the little Mary Brownlow. What there was of 
softness in her woman’s nature seemed to come out towards 
children ; though, if the child had been a boy instead of a 

705 2 z 


Crowley Castle 

girl, it is probable that Victorine would not have taken her 
into her good graces. As it was, the French nurse and the 
English child were capital friends ; and, when Victorine sent 
Mary into the Countess’s room, and bade her not be afraid, 
but ask the lady in her infantile babble to come out and see 
Mary’s snow-man, she knew the little one, for her sake, 
would put her small hand into Theresa’s, and thus plead 
with more success, because with less purpose, than any one 
else had been able to plead. Out came Theresa, colourless 
and sad ; holding Mary by the hand. They went, unobserved 
as they thought, to the great gallery-window, and looked 
out into the court-yard ; then Theresa returned to her rooms. 
But the ice was broken, and, before the winter was over, 
Theresa fell into her old ways, and sometimes smiled, and 
sometimes even laughed ; until chance visitors again spoke 
of her rare beauty and her courtly grace. 

It was noticeable, too, that she began to revive out of her 
lassitude to an interest in all Duke’s pursuits. She grew 
weary of Bessy’s smaller cares and domestic talk — now 
about the servants, now about her mother and the Parson- 
age, now about the parish. She questioned Duke about his 
travels, and could enter into his appreciation and judgment 
of foreign nations ; she perceived the latent powers of his 
mind ; she became impatient of their remaining dormant in 
country seclusion. She had spoken about leaving Crowley 
Castle, and of finding some other home, soon after her father’s 
death ; but both Duke and Bessy had urged her to stay with 
them ; Bessy saying, in the pure innocence of her heart, how 
glad she was to think that, in the probable increasing cares of 
her nursery, Duke would have a companion so much to his 
mind. 

About a year after Sir Mark’s death one of the members 
for Sussex died ; and Theresa set herself to stir up Duke to 
assume his place. With some difficulty — ^for Bessy was 
passive, perhaps even opposed to the scheme in her quiet 
way — Theresa succeeded ; and Duke was elected. She was 
vexed at Bessy’s torpor, as she called it, in the whole affair — 

706 


Crowley Castle 

vexed, as she now often was, with Bessy’s sluggish interest 
in all things beyond her immediate ken. Once, when 
Theresa tried to make Bessy perceive how Duke might 
shine and rise in his new sphere, Bessy burst into tears, 
and said — 

“ You speak as if his presence here were nothing, and 
his fame in London everything. I cannot help fearing he 
will leave off caring for all the quiet ways of going on, in 
which we have been so happy ever since we have been 
married.” 

“ But when he is here,” rephed Theresa, “ and when 
he wants to talk to you of politics, of foreign news, of great 
public interests, you drag him down to your level of woman’s 
cares.” 

“ Do I ? ” said Bessy, plaintively. “ Do I drag him down ? 
I wish I was cleverer ; but you know, Theresa, I was never 
clever in anything but housewifery.” 

Theresa was touched for a moment by this humility. 

“ Yet, Bessy,, you have a great deal of judgment, if you 
will but exercise it. Try and take an interest in all he 
cares for, as well as making him try and take an interest in 
your affairs ! ” 

But, somehow, this kind of conversation too often ended 
in dissatisfaction on both sides ; and the servants gathered by 
induction, rather than from words, that the two ladies were 
not on the most cordial terms, however friendly they might 
wish to be, and might strive to appear. Madam Hawtrey, 
too, allowed her jealousy of Theresa to deepen into dislike. 
She was jealous, because, in some unreasonable way, she had 
taken it into her head that Theresa’s presence at the castle 
was the reason why she was not urged to take up her abode 
there, on Sir Mark’s death ; as if there had not been rooms 
and suites of rooms enough to lodge a multitude of dowagers 
in the building, if the owner so wished. But Duke had 
certain ideas pretty strongly fixed in his mind, and one 
was a repugnance to his mother-in-law’s constant company. 
He increased her income greatly, as soon as this was in 

707 


Crowley Castle 

his power ; and he left it entirely to herself how she should 
spend it. 

Having now the means of travelling about, Madam 
Hawtrey betook herself pretty frequently to such watering- 
places as were in vogue at that day, or went to pay visits at 
the houses of those friends who occasionally came lumbering 
up in shabby vehicles, to visit their cousin Bessy at the 
castle. Theresa cared little for Madame Hawtrey’s coldness ; 
perhaps, indeed, never perceived it. She gave up striving 
with Bessy, too; it was hopeless to try to make her an 
intellectual ambitious companion to her husband. He had 
spoken in the House ; he had written a pamphlet that made 
much noise; the minister of the day had sought him out, 
and was trying to attach him to the government. Theresa, 
with her Parisian experience of the way in which women 
influenced politics, would have given anything for the 
Brownlows to have taken a house in London. She longed 
to see the great politicians, to find herself in the thick of 
the struggle for place and power, the brilliant centre of all 
that was worth hearing and seeing in the kingdom. There 
had been some talk of this same London house ; but Bessy 
had pleaded against it earnestly, while Theresa sat by in 
indignant silence, until she could bear the discussion no 
longer; going off to her own sitting-room, where Victorine 
was at work. Here her pent-up words found vent — not 
addressed to her servant, but not restrained before her : 

“ I cannot bear it — to see him cramped in by her narrow 
mind; to hear her weak selfish arguments, urged because 
she feels she would be out of place beside him. And Duke 
is hampered with this woman : he whose powers are unknown 
even to himself, or he would put her feeble nature on one 
side, and seek his higher atmosphere. How he would shine ! 
How he does shine ! Good Heaven ! To think ” 

And here she sank into silence, watched by Victorine’s 
furtive eyes. 

Duke had excelled all ho had previously done by some 
great burst of eloquence, and the country rang with his 

708 


Crowley Castle 

words. He was to come down to Crowley Castle for a 
parliamentary recess, which occurred almost immediately 
after this. Theresa calculated the hours of each part of 
the complicated journey, and could have told to five minutes 
when he might he expected ; but the baby was ill and 
absorbed all Bessy’s attention. She Was in the nursery by 
the cradle in which the child slept, when her husband came 
riding up to the castle gate. But Theresa was at the gate ; 
her hair all out of powder, and blowing away into dishevelled 
curls, as the hood of her cloak fell back ; her lips parted with 
a breathless welcome ; her eyes shining out love and pride. 
Duke was but mortal. All London chanted his rising fame ; 
and here in his home Theresa seemed to be the only person 
who appreciated him. 

The servants clustered in the great hall ; for it was now 
some length of time since he had been at home. Victorine 
was there, with some head-gear for her lady; and when, in 
reply to his inquiry for his wife, the grave butler asserted 
that she was with young master, who was, they feared, very 
seriously ill, Victorine said, with the familiarity of an old 
servant, and as if to assuage Duke’s anxiety : “ Madam 
fancies the child is ill, because she can think of nothing but 
him, and perpetual watching has made her nervous.” The 
child, however, was really ill ; and, after a brief greeting to 
her husband, Bessy returned to her nursery, leaving Theresa 
to question, to hear, to sympathise. That night she gave 
way to another burst of disparaging remarks on poor 
motherly, homely Bessy, and that night Victorine thought 
she read a deeper secret in Theresa’s heart. 

The child was scarcely ever out of its mother’s arms ; 
but the illness became worse, and it was nigh unto death. 
Some cream had been set aside for the little wailing creature, 
and Victorine had unwittingly used it for the making of a 
cosmetic for her mistress. When the servant in charge of 
it reproved her, a quarrel began as to their respective mistress’s 
right to give orders in the household. Before the dispute 
ended, pretty strong things had been said on both sides. 

709 


Crowley Castle 

The child died. The heir was lifeless ; the servants were 
in whispering dismay and bustling discussion of their 
mourning ; Duke felt the vanity of fame, as compared to a 
baby’s life. Theresa was full of sympathy, but dared not 
express it to him ; so tender was her heart becoming. 
Victorine regretted the death in her own way. Bessy lay 
speechless, and tearless ; not caring for loving voices, nor 
for gentle touches ; taking neither food nor drink ; neither 
sleeping nor weeping. “ Send for her mother,” the doctor 
said ; for Madam Hawtrey was away on her visits, and the 
letters telling her of her grandchild’s illness had not reached 
her in the slow-delaying cross-country posts of those days. 
So she was sent for, by a man riding express, as a quicker 
and surer means than the post. 

Meanwhile, the nurses, exhausted by their watching, 
found the care of little Mary by day quite enough. Madam’s 
maid sat up with Bessy for a night or two ; Duke striding in 
from time to time through the dark hours, to look at the 
white, motionless face, which would have seemed like the 
face of one dead, but for the long- quivering sighs that came 
up from the over-laden heart. The doctor tried his drugs 
in vain, and then he tried again. This night, Yictorine, at 
her own, earnest request, sat up instead of the maid. As 
usual, towards midnight, Duke came stealing in with shaded 
light. “ Hush ! ” said Victorine, her finger on her lips. 
“ She sleeps at last.” Morning dawned faint and pale, and 
still she slept. The doctor came, and stole in on tip-toe, 
rejoicing in the effect of his drugs. They all stood round 
the bed ; Duke, Theresa, Victorine. Suddenly the doctor — 
a strange change upon him, a strange fear in his face — felt 
the patient’s pulse, put his ear to her open lips, called for a 
glass — a feather. The mirror was not dimmed, the delicate 
fibres stirred not. Bessy was dead. 

I pass rapidly over many months. Theresa was again 
overwhelmed with grief, or rather, I should say, remorse ; 
for, now that Bessy was gone, and buried out of sight, all 
her innocent virtues, all her feminine homeliness, came 

710 


Crowley Castle 

vividly into Theresa’s mind — not as wearisome, but as 
admirable, qualities of which she had been too blind to 
perceive the value. Bessy had been her own old companion 
too, in the happy days of childhood, and of innocence. 
Theresa rather shunned than sought Duke’s company now. 
She remained at the castle, it is true, and Madam Hawtrey, 
as Theresa’s only condition of continuing where she was, 
came to hve under the same roof. Duke felt his wife’s 
death deeply, but reasonably, as became his character. He 
was perplexed by Theresa’s bursts of grief, knowing, as he 
dimly did, that she and Bessy had not lived together in 
perfect harmony. But he was much in London now ; a 
rising statesman ; and when, in autumn, he spent some time 
at the castle, he was full of admiration for the strangely 
patient way in which Theresa behaved towards the old lady. 
It seemed to Duke that in his absence Madam Hawtrey 
had assumed absolute power in his household, and that the 
high-spirited Theresa submitted to her fantasies with even 
more docility than her own daughter would have done. 
Towards Mary, Theresa was always kind and indulgent. 

Another autumn came ; and before it went, old ties were 
renewed, and Theresa was pledged to become her cousin’s 
wife. 

There were two people strongly affected by this news 
when it was promulgated ; one — and this was natural under 
the circumstances — was Madam Hawtrey; who chose to 
resent the marriage as a deep personal offence to herself as 
well as to her daughter’s memory, and who, sternly rejecting 
all Theresa’s entreaties, and Duke’s invitation to continue 
her residence at the castle, went off into lodgings in the 
village. The other person strongly affected by the news 
was Victorine. 

From being a dry active energetic middle-aged woman, 
she now, at the time of Theresa’s engagement, sank into the 
passive languor of advanced life. It seemed as if she felt 
no more need of effort, or strain, or exertion. She sought 
solitude ; liked nothing better than tQ §it in her rQom adjoining 

pi 


Crowley Castle 

Theresa’s dressing-room, sometimes sunk in a reverie, 
sometimes employed on an intricate piece of knitting with 
almost spasmodic activity. But wherever Theresa went, 
thither would Victorine go. Theresa had imagined that her 
old nurse would prefer being left at the castle, in the soothing 
tranquillity of the country, to accompanying her and her 
husband to the house in Grosvenor Square, which they had 
taken for the parliamentary season. But the mere offer of a 
choice seemed to irritate Victorine inexpressibly. She looked 
upon the proposal as a sign that Theresa considered her as 
superannuated — that her nursling was weary of her, and 
wished to supplant her services by those of a younger maid. 
It seemed impossible to dislodge this idea when it had once 
entered into her head, and it led to frequent bursts of temper, 
in which she violently upbraided Theresa for her ingratitude 
towards so faithful a follower. 

One day, Victorine went a little further in her expressions 
than usual, and Theresa, usually so forbearing towards her, 
turned at last. Keally, Victorine ! ” she said, “ this is 
misery to both of us. You say you never feel so wicked as 
when I am near you ; that my ingratitude is such as would 
be disowned by fiends ; what can I, what must I do ? You 
say you are never so unhappy as when you are near me ; 
must we, then, part? Would that be for your happi- 
ness ? ” 

“ And is that what it has come to ! ” exclaimed Victorine. 
“ In my country they reckon a building secure against wind 
and storm and all the ravages of time, if the first mortar 
used has been tempered with human blood. But not even 
our joint secret, though it was tempered well with blood, 
can hold our lives together ! How much less all the care, 
all the love, that I lavished upon you in the days of my 
youth and strength ! ” 

Theresa came close to the chair in which Victorine was 
seated. She took hold of her hand and held it fast in her 
own. “ Speak, Victorine,” said she, hoarsely, “ and tell me 
what you mean. Wliat is our joint secret ? And what do 

712 


Crowley Castle 

you mean by its being a secret of blood? Speak out! I 
WILL know.” 

“ As if you did not know I ” replied Victorine, harshly. 
“You don’t remember my visits to Bianconi, the Italian 
chemist in the Marais, long ago ? ” She looked into 
Theresa’s face, to see if her words had suggested any deeper 
meaning than met the ear. No ; Theresa’s look was stem, 
but free and innocent. 

“You told me you went there to learn the composition 
of certain unguents, and cosmetics, and domestic medicines.” 

“Ay, and paid high for my knowledge, too,” said 
Victorine, with a low chuckle. “ I learned more than you 
have mentioned, my lady countess. I learnt the secret 
nature of many drugs — to speak plainly, I learnt the art of 
poisoning. And,” suddenly standing up, “it was for your 
sake I learnt it. For your service — you — who would fain 
cast me off in my old age ! For you ! ” 

Theresa blanched to a deadly white. But she tried to 
move neither feature nor limb, nor to avert her eyes for one 
moment from the eyes that defied her. “ For my service, 
Victorine ? ” 

“Yes! The quieting draught was all ready for your 
husband, when they brought him home dead.” 

“ Thank God, his death does not lie at your door ! ” 

“ Thank God ? ” mocked Victorine. “ The wish for his 
death does lie at your door; and the intent to rid you of 
him does lie at my door. And I am not ashamed of it. Not 
I ! It was not for myself I would have done it, but because 
you suffered so. He had struck you, whom I had nursed on 
my breast.” 

“ Oh, Victorine ! ” said Theresa, with a shudder. “ Those 
days are past. Bo not let us recall them ! I was so wicked 
because I was so miserable; and now I am so happy, so 
inexpressibly happy, that— do let me try to make you happy 
too ! ” 

“You ought to try,” said Victorine, not yet pacified; 
“ can’t you see how the incomplete action, once stopped by 

713 


Crowley Castle 

Fate, was tried again, and with success ; and how you are 
now reaping the benefit of my sin, if sin it was ? ” 

“ Yictorine ! I do not know what you mean I ” But some 
terror must have come over her, she so trembled and so 
shivered. 

“ Do you not indeed ? Madam Brownlow, the country 
girl from Crowley Parsonage, needed sleep, and would fain 
forget the little child’s death that was pressing on her brain. 
I helped the doctor to his end. She sleeps now, and she 
has met her baby before this, if priests’ tales are true. And 
you, my beauty, my queen, you reign in her stead! Don’t 
treat the poor Victorine as if she were mad, and speaking in 
her madness. I have heard of tricks Uke that being played, 
when the crime was done, and the criminal of use no 
longer.” 

That evening, Duke was surprised by his wife’s entreaty 
and petition that she might leave him, and return with 
Victorine and her other personal servants to the seclusion 
of Crowley Castle. She, the great London toast, the power- 
ful enchantress of society, and, most of all, the darling wife 
and true companion, with this sudden fancy for this com- 
plete retirement, and for leaving her husband when he was 
first fully entering into the comprehension of all that a wife 
might be ! Was it ill-health ? Only last night she had been 
in dazzling beauty, in brilliant spirits ; this morning only, she 
had been so merry and tender. But Theresa denied that 
she was in any way indisposed; and seemed suddenly so 
unwilling to speak of herself, and so much depressed, that 
Duke saw nothing for it but to grant her wish and let her 
go. He missed her terribly. No more pleasant tete-a-tete 
breakfasts, enlivened by her sense and wit, and cheered by 
her pretty caressing ways. No gentle secretary now, to sit 
by his side through long, long hours, never weary. When 
he went into society, he no longer found his appearance 
watched and waited for by the loveliest woman there. When 
he came home from the House at night, there was no one 
to tg-ke an interest in his speeches, to be indignant at all 

7H 


Crowley Castle 

that annoyed him, and charmed and proud of all the ad- 
miration he had won. He longed for the time to come 
when he would be able to go down for a day or two to see 
his wife ; for her letters appeared to him dull and flat after 
her bright companionship. No wonder that her letters came 
out of a heavy heart, knowing what she knew. 

She scarcely dared to go near Victorine, whose moods 
were becoming as variable as though she were indeed the 
mad woman she had tauntingly defled Theresa to call her. 
At times she was miserable, because Theresa looked so ill, and 
seemed so deeply unhappy. At other times she was jealous, 
because she fancied Theresa shrank from her and avoided her. 
So, wearing her life out with passion, Victorine’s health grew 
daily worse and worse during that summer. 

Theresa’s only comfort seemed to be little Mary’s society. 
She seemed as though she could not lavish love enough 
upon the motherless child, who repaid Theresa’s affection 
with all the pretty demonstrativeness of her age. She would 
carry the httle three-year-old maiden in her arms when she 
went to see Victorine, or would have Mary playing about in 
her dressing-room, if the old Frenchwoman, for some jealous 
freak, would come and arrange her lady’s hair with her 
trembling hands. To avoid giving offence to Victorine, 
Theresa engaged no other maid; to shun over- much or 
over-frank conversation with Victorine, she always had little 
Mary with her, when there was a chance of the French 
waiting-maid coming in. For the presence of the child 
was a holy restraint even on Victorine’s tongue ; she would 
sometimes check her fierce temper, to caress the little creature 
playing at her knees, and would only dart a covert bitter 
sting at Theresa under the guise of a warning against 
ingratitude, addressed to Mary. 

Theresa drooped and drooped in this dreadful life. She 
sought out Madam Hawtrey, and prayed her to come on a 
long visit to the castle. She was lonely, she siid, asking 
for madam’s company as a favour to herself. Madam 
Hawtrey was difficult to persuade ; but, the more she 

715 


Crowley Castle 

resisted, the more Theresa entreated ; and, when once madam 
was at the castle, her own daughter had never been so 
dutiful, so humble a slave to her slightest fancy as was the 
proud Theresa now. 

Yet, for all this, the lady of the castle drooped and 
drooped ; and, when Duke came down to see his darling he 
was in utter dismay at her looks. Yet she said she was 
well enough, only tired. If she had anything more upon 
her mind, she refused him her confidence. He watched her 
narrowly, trying to forestall her smallest desires. He saw 
her tender affection for Mary, and thought he had never 
seen so lovely and tender a mother to another woman’s 
child. He wondered at her patience with Madam Hawtrey, 
remembering how often his own stock had been exhausted 
by his mother-in-law, and how the brilliant Theresa had 
formerly scouted and flouted at the vicar’s wife. With all 
this renewed sense of his darling’s virtues and charms, the 
idea of losing her was too terrible to bear. 

He would listen to no pleas, to no objections. Before 
he returned to town, where his presence was a political 
necessity, he sought the best medical advice that could be 
had in the neighbourhood. The doctors came ; they could 
make but little out of Theresa, if her vehement assertion 
was true that she had nothing on her mind. Nothing. 

“ Humour him at least, my dear lady ! ” said the doctor, 
who had known Theresa from her infancy, but who, living 
at the distant county- town, was only called in on the 
Olympian occasions of great state illnesses. “ Humour your 
husband, and perhaps do yourself some good too, by con- 
senting to his desire that you should have change of air. 
Brighthelmstone is a quiet village by the sea-side. Consent, 
like a gracious lady, to go there for a few weeks.” 

So, Theresa, worn out with opposition, consented, and 
Duke made all the arrangements for taking her, and little 
Mary, and the necessary suite of servants, to Brighton, as 
we call it now. He resolved in his own mind that Theresa’s 
personal attendant should be some woman young enough 

716 


Crowley Castle 

to watch and wait upon her mistress, and not Victorine, 
to whom Theresa was in reality a servant. But of this plan 
neither Theresa nor Victorine knew anything, until the former 
was in the carriage with her husband some miles distant 
from the castle. Then he, a little exultant in the good 
management by which he supposed he had spared his wife 
the pain and trouble of decision, told her that Victorine was 
left behind, and that a new accomplished London maid 
would await her at her journey’s end. 

Theresa only exclaimed “ Oh ! What will Victorine 
say ? ” and covered her face, and sat shivering and 
speechless. 

What Victorine did say, when she found out the trick, 
as she esteemed it, that had been played upon her, was too 
terrible to repeat. She lashed herself up into an ungoverned 
passion; and then became so really and seriously ill that 
the servants went to fetch Madam Hawtrey in terror and 
dismay. But, when that lady came, Victorine shut her 
eyes, and refused to look at her. “ She has got her daughter 
in her hand ! I will not look ! ” She shook all the time she 
uttered these awe-stricken words, as if she were in an ague- 
fit. “ Bring the countess back to me. Let her face the dead 
woman standing there ; I will not do it. They wanted her 
to sleep — and so did the countess, that she might step into 
her lawful place. Theresa, Theresa, where are you ? You 
tempted me. What I did, I did in your service. And you 
have gone away, and left me alone with the dead woman ! 
It was the same drug as the doctor gave, after all — only 
he gave little, and I gave much. My lady the countess 
spent her money well, when she sent me to the old Italian 
to learn his trade. Lotions for the complexion, and a dis- 
criminating use of poisonous drugs. I discriminated, and 
Theresa profited; and now she is his wife, and has left 
me here alone with the dead woman. Theresa, Theresa, 
come back and save me from the dead woman ! ” 

Madam Hawtrey stood by, horror-stricken. “ Fetch the 
vicar,” said she, under her breath, to a servant. 

717 


Crowley Castle 

*‘The village-doctor is coming,” said some one near. 
** How she raves ! Is it delirium ? ” 

“ It is no delirium,” said Bessy’s mother. “ Would to 
Heaven it were ! ” 

Theresa had a happy day with her husband at Bright- 
helmstone, before he set off on his return to London. She 
watched him riding away, his servant following with his 
portmanteau. Often and often did Duke look back at the 
figure of his wife, waving her handkerchief, till a turn of the 
road hid her from his sight. He had to pass through a little 
village not ten miles from his home; and there a servant, 
with his letters and further luggage, was to await him. 
There he found a mysterious, imperative note, requiring his 
immediate presence at Crowley Castle. Something in the 
awe-stricken face of the servant from the castle led Duke 
to question him. But all he could say was, that Victorine 
lay dying, and that Madam Hawtrey had said that after that 
letter 'the master was sure to return, and so would need no 
luggage. Something lurked behind, evidently. Duke rode 
home at speed. The vicar was looking out for him. “ My 
dear boy,” said he, relapsing into the old relations of tutor 
and pupil, “ prepare yourself.” 

“ What for ? ” said Duke, abruptly; for the being told to 
prepare himself, without being told for what, irritated him 
in his present mood. “ Victorine is dead ? ” 

“ No ! She says she will not die until she has seen you, 
and got you to forgive her, if Madam Hawtrey will not. But 
first read this : it is a terrible confession, made by her before me, 
a magistrate, believing herself to be on the point of death ! ” 
Duke read the paper — containing little more in point of 
detail than I have already given — the horrible words taken 
down in the short-hand in which the vicar used to write his 
mild, prosy sermons : his pupil knew the character of old. 
Duke read it twice. Then he said : “ She is raving, poor 
creature ! ” But, for all that, his heart’s blood ran cold ; and 
he would fain not have faced the woman, but would rather 
have remained in doubt to his dying-day. 

718 


Crowley Castle 

He went up the stairs three steps at a time, and then 
turned and faced the vicar, with a look like the stern calm- 
ness of death. “ I wish to see her alone.” He turned out 
all the watching women, and then he went to the bedside 
where Victorine sat, half-propped-up with pillows, watching 
all his doings and his looks, with her hollow, awful eyes. 
“ Now, Victorine, I will read this paper aloud to you. 
Perhaps your mind has been wandering; but you under- 
stand me now?” A feeble murmur of assent met his 
listening ear. “ If any statement in this paper be not true, 
make me a sign. Hold up your hand — for God’s sake hold 
up your hand ! And, if you can do it with truth in this, your 
hour of dying, the Lord have mercy on you ; but, if you cannot 
hold up your hand, then the Lord have mercy upon me I ” 

He read the paper slowly; clause by clause he read 
the paper. No sign; no uplifted hand. At the end she 
spoke, and he bent his head to listen. “ The Countess — ■ 
Theresa you know — she who has left me to die alone — she ” 
— then mortal strength failed, and Duke was left alone in 
the chamber of death. 

He stayed in the chamber many minutes, quite still. 
Then he left the room, and said to the first domestic he 
could find, “ The woman is dead. See that she is attended 
to.”^ But he went to the vicar, and had a long, long talk with 
him. He sent a confidential servant for little Mary — on 
some pretext, hardly careful, or plausible enough ; but his 
mood was desperate, and he seemed to forget almost every- 
thing but Bessy, his first wife, his innocent girlish bride. 

Theresa could ill spare her little darling, and was per- 
plexed by the summons; but an explanation of it was to 
come in a day or two. It came. 

“ Victorine is dead ; I need say no more. She could not 
carry her awful secret into the next world, but told all. 
I can think of nothing but my poor Bessy, delivered over 
to the cruelty of such a woman. And you, Theresa, I leave 
you to your conscience, for you have slept in my bosom. 
Henceforward I am a stranger to you. By the time you 

719 


Crowley Castle 

receive this, I, and my child, and that poor murdered girl’s 
mother, will have left England. What will be our next step 
I know not. My agent will do for you what you need.” 

Theresa sprang up and rang her bell with mad haste. 
“ Get me a horse ! ” she cried, “ and bid William be ready 
to ride with me for his life — for my life — along the coast, to 
Dover ! ” 

They rode, and they galloped, through the night, scarcely 
staying to bait their horses. But, when they came to Dover, 
they looked out to sea upon the white sails that bore Duke 
and his child away. Theresa was too late, and it broke her 
heart. She lies buried in Dover church-yard. After long 
years, Duke returned to England ; but his place in parliament 
knew him no more, and his daughter’s husband sold Crowley 
Castle to a stranger. 


720 


TWO FRAGMENTS OF GHOST 
STORIES 


I 

I HAVE no objection to tell you to what I alluded the other 
night, as I am too rational, I trust, to believe in ghosts ; at 
the same time, I own it has ever remained an unexplained 
circumstance ; and the impression it left on my own mind 
was so vivid and so painful that for years I could not bear 
to think at all on the subject. To you, even, I do not mind 
owning that I once made a considerable round to avoid 
Birmingham as a sleeping-place. This was thoroughly 
ridiculous ; and so I felt it at the time. I think you know 
enough of my father and mother to recall a little of the 
gentle formality of the Society to which they used to belong. 
Don’t you remember how my mother would check any “ vain 
talking” in her own mild, irresistible way? All tales and 
stories which were not true were excluded from the dear old 
nursery-library at Heverington. Much more so were ghosts 
and fairies prohibited ; though the knowledge that there 
were such things to be talked about came to us, I don’t 
know how. Do you know, I even now draw back from 
telling the story of my fright ! I do believe I am making 
this preamble, in order to defer the real matter of my letter. 
But now I will begin at once. 

I was going back to school at Dunchurch ; and my father 
could not go with me, because of some special jury-case at 
Chester which he was obliged to attend ; so I was to be put 
in charge of the guard of the coach as far as Birmingham, 
where a friend of my father’s was to meet me, and take me 
to sleep at his house. It was on the 26th of January ; so 

721 3 A 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

you may be sure it was dark when we got into Birmingham 
about seven o’clock. The coach rumbled into an inn-yard, 
and I was wakened out of my sleep by some one popping in 
a broad-brimmed hat (with a head under it, I suppose ; only 
the hat stood out in relief against the light) and asking if 
Hannah Johnson was there ? I remember feeling frightened 
at saying “ Yes,” and wishing that some one were there to 
answer for me ; and at last I spoke sadly too loud — but I 
had tried twice before, and no voice had come. 

Well ! I was soon bundled, more asleep than awakje, into 
a gig ; and my luggage was all stowed away till morning, in 
the booking- ofi&ce, I suppose. We had a drive of two miles, 
or it might be two miles and a half, out of the very thick of 
the town into a sort of suburb on a hill-side. The houses 
were plain and commonplace enough (red-brick, I saw the 
next morning, they were), with a long slip of garden, up 
which we had to walk. A woman Friend came to the steps, 
with a candle in her hand, to meet us ; and I liked her from 
the first better than her silent husband, who did his duty, 
but never spoke. She made me take off my shoes ; felt my 
stockings to see if they were wet ; then she hurried tea, to 
which I remember I had no sugar, because of the slave- 
trade, which many good people were then striving to put 
down. She talked a good deal to me ; and, if her husband 
had not been there, I should have talked much more openly 
back again ; but, as it was, I remember feeling sure he was 
listening behind his newspaper ; and very uncomfortable it 
made me. I recollect she had let the cat jump on her knee 
and was stroking it, and it was purring ; but he gave it a slap 
and sent it down, saying, “ Esther, thee hadst three drab 
gowns last year. That cat will cost me as many this.” I 
don’t remember his speaking again ; but I know I was as 
glad as the cat to get out of the room, and upstairs to my 
snug bedroom. The house was joined to another; and, 
somehow, they dove-tailed together; so that, though there 
was but one room in the front, there were two in width 
behind ; one on each side of the passage. 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

We breakfasted in the left-hand room at the back next 
morning ; but I never knew what the right-hand room was. 
Only, over it on the first floor, was the chamber I was to 
sleep in that night ; and very comfortable it looked, with a 
pleasant fire, and a great deal of crimson and white about 
the room. You went in, and had the fire on your right-hand 
and the bed opposite to you, and the large window, with the 
dressing-table under it, on the left. The house altogether 
must have been eighty or ninety years old; I judge from 
the chimney-pieces, which, I recollect, were very high, with 
narrow shelves, and made of painted wood, with garlands 
tied with ribbons, carved, not very well, upon them. The 
bed, I remember, was a great, large one — too large for the 
room, I should think ; but you heard me say I have never 
seen it since that time. Judging from my recollections, I 
should imagine the furniture had been picked up at sales, 
in accordance with the thriftiness of the master of the house. 
(I do not mention his name, because he has a nephew, a 
respectable tea-dealer in Bull Street, and a member of the 
Society of Friends, who would not, I am sure, like to have 
his name connected with a ghost-story.) 

All these things I was too tired to notice that night. I 
put my feet into hot water — ^though I would much rather 
have gone straight to bed — because my kind hostess urged it ; 
and then it was found out I had left my carpet-bag at the 
inn ; so I had to wait till a night-gown and night-cap of hers 
was aired. And at last I tumbled into bed. 

I think I fell asleep directly; at any rate, I don’t 
remember anything of being awake. But, by-and-by, I 
wakened up suddenly. To this day, I don’t know what 
wakened me; but I was all at once perfectly conscious, 
although at first I was puzzled to remember where I was. 
The fire had burnt down, but not very much; there was, 
however, not a great deal of light from it. But it seemed as 
if there were some light behind the right-hand curtain at the 
head of the bed ; just as if some one had been in and put a 
candle down on the drawers, which stood between the bed 

723 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

and the window. I thought I must have forgotten to put 
the candle out, though I did not remember putting it there. 
I had some debates with myself as to whether I would leave 
my warm bed, and get up into the cold and put it out ; and 
I think I should never have troubled myself about it, if I had 
not remembered that the candle would be burnt down before 
morning, and that perhaps I might get a scolding from my 
host. Still, I was so lazy ! and I thought I could perhaps 
stretch out of bed far enough to put it out without fairly 
getting up. So I shuffled to the cold side of the bed (which 
was fully large enough, and indeed prepared for two people). 

I name this, because I remember the wide-awake feeling 
which the icy coldness of the fine linen sheets gave me, 
when I was lying across them ; stretching out, I undrew 
the crimson moreen curtain. There was no candle ; but a 
bright light — ^very red ; more like the very earliest blush of 
dawn on a summer’s morning than anything else ; but very 
red and glowing. It seemed to come from, or out of — I don’t 
know how — the figure of a woman, who sat in the easy chair 
by the head of the bed. I think she was a young woman, 
but I did not see her face ; it was bent down over a little 
child which she held in her arms, and rocked backwards and 
forwards, as if she were getting it to sleep, with her cheek on 
its head. She took no notice of my drawing back the 
curtain, though it made a rustling noise, and the rings grated 
a little on the rod. I could draw the pattern of the chintz 
gown she wore ; of a kind called by my mother, a palam- 
pore: an Indian thing, with a large straggling print on it, 
but which had been in fashion many years before. 

I don’t think I was frightened then ; at least, I looked 
curiously, and did not drop the curtain, as I should have 
done if I had been frightened, I think. I thought of her as 
somebody in great distress ; her gesture and the way she 
hung her head all showed that. I knew very little about the 
people I was staying with; they might have babies, for 
aught I knew, and this might be some friend or visitor, who 
was soothing a restless child. I knew my mother often 

724 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

walked about with my little brother who was teething. But 
it was rather strange I had not seen this lady at tea ; and a 
httle strange too that her dress was so very gay and bright- 
coloured, because in general such dress would be considered 
by Friends to savour too much of the world, and would be 
remonstrated against. While these thoughts were passing 
through my mind— of course in much less time than it 
takes me to write them down — the lady rose, and I dropped 
the curtain and 


II 

Well, my dear Bob, let those laugh who win ! You, 
who were so much amused at my being captivated by the 
queerly- worded advertisement of lodgings in the “ Guardian,” 
would be glad enough, I fancy, to exchange your small, dingy, 
smoky rooms in Manchester (even granted the delights of a 
railway excursion every day during Whitsun-week) for my 
Lorton Grange, though my host cannot write grammar, any 
more than my hostess can speak it. I do like the spice 
which the uncertainty of the result gives to any adventure ; 
and therefore my spirits grew higher and more boisterous, 
the wilder and more desolate grew the hills and the moors, 
over which I passed in the shandry my landlord had sent 
to meet me at the station. 

When I say the “station,” you are not to picture 
to yourself anything like a Euston or a Victoria; but 
just a modest neat kind of turnpike-house, with no other 
dwelling near it; no passengers crowding for tickets, no 
pyramids of luggage. I myself was the only person to 
alight, and the train whizzed away, leaving me standing and 
gazing (rather sadly I must confess) at the last relic of a 
town I was to see for a whole week. But the delicious 
mountain-air blew away melancholy ; and I had not gone 
many paces before I saw the shandry, jogging along on its 

725 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

approach to the station. Worthy Mr. Jackson fancied he 
had an hour to spare for a chat with his friend at the station, 
and a rest for his horse. No wonder ! for, when I arrived 
at Lorton Grange, I found the clocks differed by two hours 
from one another, and each an hour from the real time of 
day. Does not this speak volumes as to the way in which 
life is dreamt away in these dales ? 

Good- man Jackson was taciturn enough on the drive— a 
circumstance I did not dislike, as it gave me leisure to look 
about. The road wound up among brown heathery hills, 
with scarce a bush to catch a stray light, or a passing 
shadow ; the few fences there were to be seen were made of 
loose stones piled on one another, and cemented solely by 
the moss and ferns which filled up every crevice. I do not 
intend to worry you by description of scenery, any more 
than will be absolutely necessary to give you an idea of my 
locale ; so I shall only say that, after about an hour’s drive 
over these hills, “ fells ” and “ knots,” as my landlord called 
them, we dropped down by a most precipitous road into the 
valley in which Lorton Grange is situated. 

The dale is about half a mile in breadth, with a brawling, 
dashing, brilliant, musical stream dividing it into unequal 
halves. At places, the grey rocks hem the noisy, sparkling 
waters in, and absolutely encroach upon their territory; 
again they recede and leave bays of the greenest of green 
meadows between rock and river. On one of these Lorton 
Grange was erected some three hundred years ago; and 
rather a stately place it must have been in those days. It 
is built around a hollow square, and must have been roomy 
enough, when all the sides were appropriated to the use of 
the family. Now two are occupied as farm-buildings, and 
one is almost in ruins ; it has been gutted to serve as a large 
barn, and the rain evidently comes in, every here and there, 
through the neglected roof. The front of the quadrangular 
building is used as the dwelling-place of the farmer’s family. 
Formerly, a short avenue must have led up to the ivy-covered 
porch from the road which is flanked by the afore-mentioned 

726 


Two Fragments of Ghost Stories 

river. Now, all the trees are felled, except one noble beech, 
which sweeps the ground close to the walls of the house, 
and throws into green obscurity one charming window-seat 
in my sitting-room. All over the front of the house clamber 
roses, flaunting their branches above the very eaves ; but 
they seem to grow by sufi’erance now, and to flower from 
summer to summer without imparting pleasure to any one. 

You must not suppose that we drove up to the grand 
entrance ; the old carriage-road has long been ploughed up, 
and grass now grows where once the Lortons paced daintily 
along their avenue. Mr. Jackson took me to the back-door 
in the inner square, fluttering two or three dozen hens and 
turkeys, and evoking a barking welcome from almost as 
many dogs and whelps. I steered my way through the 
dim confusion of a large crowded kitchen, having for guide 
the voice of some female, who at the end of a dark passage 
kept calling, “ This way, sir ; this way ; ” and at last I arrived 
at the room in which I now write — the ancient hall, I 
take it. 

I could write down an inventory of the furniture and 
description of any room in a lodging-house in Manchester ; 
but I think I might defy you to return the compliment, and 
form even a guess at the apartment I am now occupying. 
Think of four windows, and five doors, to begin with ! Two 
of my windows look to the front, and are casements, draperied 
with ivy ; through one the glancing waters of the stream 
glint into my room, when the sun shines as it does nov ; 
the other two look into the noisy farm-yard ; but on these 
window-seats are placed enormous unpruned geraniums 
and fuchsias, which form an agreeable blind. As to the 
doors, two of them are mysteries to me at this present ; one 
is the back entrance to the room through which 


END OF VOL. VII 


737 



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